


Terminal Velocity

by KKGlinka



Series: Time Flies [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempted Sexual Assault, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, One-Sided Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slavery, Talon!Tracer, Tragedy, talon au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 12:46:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8162474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KKGlinka/pseuds/KKGlinka
Summary: As Overwatch fell, Talon transformed from a terrorist organization to a legitimate private corporation that promised — and delivered — security in a post-war society for governments and employees alike. In this world, former Overwatch agents and allies have been deemed terrorists; Tracer knows to obey the masters who retrieved her from the Slipstream; and Lena Oxton doesn't dare stop running.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Posted this to a side-blog earlier. Putting it to bed here. The poor thing hasn't seen a beta and it can just rot in hell. Anyone who wants to play with this version is welcome to do so. I place all blame on the following artists: [**(insp #1)**](http://nikanono.tumblr.com/post/148307806390/talon-tracer-warm-ups) and [**(insp #2)**](http://faeriefountainart.tumblr.com/post/150925904300/faeriefountainart-designing-a-widowmaker-skin)

Tracer whirled, a grin etched on her face as the warning shot grazed her shoulder, recalling back one second and blinking aside so that the wound was merely a memory. It wasn't enough time for the sniper to recalibrate to her target's former position and shrapnel flew back from plasticrete where the high calibre round impacted. 

She reflexively used the prior and new trajectories of that shot to triangulate her opponent's position and blinked toward her, laughing as she danced high speed over the roof tops. Both arms raised, both pistols aimed as if she were a pointer on the scent, deviating from her assigned mission. Her transport back to base was en route — she could not leave the area — which meant she could play. This was acceptable and delight blossomed in her chest. 

There, dropping on a grappling line, the gray and black shadow of a woman wielding a rifle almost as long as she was tall. That enormous weapon could collapse into a rapid-fire carbine for use at mid-range and Tracer began darting into zig-zags to avoid incoming surgical strikes. She needed to get into melée range to gain the offensive advantage. 

Her opponent swore softly in French as Tracer crossed the invisible threshold and opened fire with her pistols. 

Tracer wanted Amélie to dance, lighting her up with bright blue pulses that never strayed close enough to severely wound, let alone kill. Her smile parted with admiration as the sniper gracefully dodged and twisted acrobatically. It was like watching a mauve snake and the woman was just as deadly as any ornamental adder. It was completely asinine to want this confrontation, but here she was, herding Amélie about with weapons meant to kill, not play. 

Though the carbine wasn't as fast at this range, Tracer found herself recalling with greater frequency than usual. "Oi! You been on the pistol range, have you, luv?" 

Amélie answered with a bullet that nearly took Tracer through the throat, chips of plasticrete bouncing off her alloy choker. 

"Seems like a yes," she crowed back to the grimace of concentrated fury, blinking aside to reload pulse charges. 

Titanium alloy caught her full across the jaw as Amélie slammed Tracer against the nearest ventilation fan pillar. Her head cracked against the corroded steel and Tracer peered at Amélie, straight into pale, glittering eyes that she knew were a brilliant amber by daylight, over the stock of the woman's carbine. She ran the tip of her tongue over her incisors, tasting blood but feeling no loosened teeth behind a split lip. Considerate. Her lower jaw throbbed like a bitch, though. 

"Do you have any comprehension of what you just did?" Amélie hissed, expression drawn, brows and mouth pinched as she held Tracer in place with her weapon. 

Tracer blinked out of the grip, bouncing behind Amélie to spin her lazily by the shoulder and elbow, the muzzles of her pistols serving as hands. "Why wouldn't I?" she answered cheerily. She sidled in close, nuzzling her face into the crook of Amélie's neck as she kept the woman stumbling backward. Her skin was refreshingly cool against her own sweat-dampened cheek, as the stiff lapel of Amélie's jacket grazed her chin. "Was hoping you'd come out to play." 

Amélie dropped into a backward roll to prevent being thrown face-first onto the filthy rooftop, trying to take Tracer with her, but coming back into the recovery with her carbine at ready. 

Tracer blinked sloppily, landing on her elbow and hip, pivoting on those points to dodge a stream of bullets before she regained her footing. Something pinged hard against one vambrace and she staggered back into their dance with one eye tracking the incoming transport marked on the HUD of her goggles. She did understand what she had recently done, why Amélie was here to try and kill or apprehend her. It was only that she was incapable of caring and the memories of her actions were spotty and distant. 

This reality was slightly left of center just as Lena Oxton was not quite here, but her time was up. She knew time backward and forwards and in all the directions that had no names in physical reality. She moved through those now, her accelerator humming with each burst of chronal energy as she wove between the bullets with lazy ease. Using her height disadvantage, she ducked under Amélie's carbine and twisted it out of her hands, popping into the present to fling it across the roof where it clattered to a stop against a low curb. 

Amélie's eyes widened as she drew back, trying to make room, but Tracer was at full speed and wrapped her legs around the woman's waist as they flew toward the plasticrete. She tucked one heavily armored forearm behind Amélie's head to protect her from impact as they landed, grunting from the shock of it. 

She could feel little through the armor of her suit, the rigid plates of her accelerator, but there was the hard flex of Amélie's ribcage matching her harsh breaths between her thighs. In the stillness that fell between them, the rapid thrum of Amélie's heart reverberated faintly through carbon alloy, a reminder of warmth and life. 

"Get off me," Amélie ordered with clipped derision, pushing against the cap of Tracer's knee. 

Tracer rolled the barrel of her pistol under Amélie's chin, pressing it into her throat to feel the soft give second-hand through the weapon. She sighed, resigned to that disgust and rejection, but leaned over to lick at Amélie's lips regardless. She jerked back with a huff of laughter when the woman responded with a snap of her teeth. 

"Stop behaving like an animal and get off of me," Amélie warned again, black brows drawn sharply. "I know Lena is still within you and she would not do this." 

"Hm." Tracer continued to fondle her with the pistol while slithering her other arm around Amélie's right until she reached the gauntlet that housed her grapple. She couldn't force the bare-tooth grin from her face, her lips and surface of her tongue almost dry from breathing through her mouth. Nor could she stop the murky glee that washed away both past and present. Instead, she hunched forward until her accelerator pressed into the taller woman's chest, and bumped her nose against hers. "Lena's not home right now, luv," she breathed out against Amélie's lips. 

Amélie ground her teeth but continued to wait rather than struggle. They had fought in close quarters enough times that they both knew Tracer would merely blink out of any martial hold the other woman might achieve and there was no leverage for an effective strike. They also both knew that Tracer wouldn't deliver any mortal shots. 

Too late, Amélie tried to twist her right arm out of Tracer's grip, but she had already reached the cuff's trigger. The grapple fired into the darkness, a clink and clatter coming from the distance, before the line buzzed in rapid recoil. 

Feeling Amélie's body jerk beneath her, Tracer vaulted into a blink, returning to the physical world in time to hear a meaty thud followed by a distant curse. Her uncertain grin widened back to cheshire levels and she skipped over a climate control unit, throwing herself into a pirouette with a whoop of glee as she went into free-fall. She cowboyed to maximize wind resistance, rolling to face the scheduled Talon aircraft until it centered in the HUD of her goggles, breathing hard despite the efficiency of her artificial lungs.

She blinked toward the ship, once, twice, thrice and a fourth to the slight vibration of her low-profile accelerator harness, a faint tingle along her sternum as the wind roared in her ears. This was as close as she came to flying these days, forbidden from entering a cockpit. A flight risk, Talon claimed, and she laughed as her feet hit the small cargo deck, mechanical knees easily absorbing the shock and rubberized soles of prosthetic lower limbs quiet as she trotted to a brief stop. 

She rocked absently in place on the parabolic arcs as the craft hit a patch of turbulence, listening to the reverberations of the hull and wind as the hatch closed, and her jaw ached from grinning. 

"Pistols," a clipped voice reminded her. 

Without any other acknowledgment, Tracer twitched muscles in her forearms to snap back her twin pulse pistols into their housing, the weapons compacting down into her protective gauntlets. She stretched out her uncovered hands, wriggling the stiffness out of her fingers and ran bare fingertips over the nearest surface. Smooth metal interrupted by rivets, the barest scrape of uneven edges where panels overlapped. She itched with the need to touch and paced in a small circle as the rotor blades above, to star, and lee thrummed in her ear drums with physical force. 

"Distance," the handler's voice warned her, tone almost bored. 

Tracer tensed reflexively, shoulders bunching, then relaxed when there was no reprimand. She veered, pacing away from the single bench, circling the cargo hold. A bright flash of light through a porthole had her whipping around to face it, pistols snapping back into her hands. 

"At ease," her handler said soothingly. "Ship secure. Stand down." 

She swallowed back her heart, watching the glowing logo of a corporate building pass as they continued over Dubai. Further in the distance, by the haze of city lights polluting the night, she could see a column of smoke and flickers of fire. Her gaze fixed momentarily on that as she retracted her pistols again. She licked her lips, tasting copper and salt, bouncing in place with agitation. 

Then she resumed pacing, panting slightly as her heart continued its abnormally rapid pace, 'round and 'round and 'round, going nowhere fast. 

The rotors changed frequency and she jerked her head up, falling still with a surge of relief for a few seconds as the craft's altitude began to drop. Shifting from foot to foot, she redirected her attention to the hatch as they landed, engines whining. She squinted at the noise, rolling her shoulders to try and ease the tightness in her chest, muscles and bones twisting against the ever-present obstruction embedded right below her sternum. By the time the ship powered down she was almost prancing in place as if the hatch were a racing gate. 

She blinked into the landing bay impatiently at the first sight of the retrieval team — the other five handlers and the chief Research and Development bio-engineer. The handlers fanned out to flank her as she approached the doctor, in case she was too high to restrain herself. She heard the sixth following at a distance and saw the other five settle a bit as they decided Tracer was demonstrating a modicum of self-control. 

Jerkily, Tracer extended her left arm, palm up so that Doctor Pirouz Azarkeyvan would be able to access the siphon, where it was installed right below the bend of her elbow. Her hand was shaking and she watched it with detached interest. Adrenaline overload. Normal. 

The doctor already had the transdermal hypodermic in his hand and grabbed her elbow to steady her arm, injecting a small quantity of clear liquid with a quick pump. 

Tracer gulped in several breaths, every muscle in her body easing as sounds quieted and the light around her was no longer so glaring that she needed her rose-tinted goggles to tolerate vision. With sedate, controlled motions, she reached up and slid the goggles up onto her forehead, slicking back sweat-saturated hair. Probably not just sweat, given the brown smear across the right field of her goggles. She blinked rapidly, growing accustomed to the true colors around her. 

Finally, finally her heart slowed to what passed as its resting rate as the tranquilizers combated artificially elevated adrenal hormones and the updated cocktail of medications once used to create dope-sol's during the Omnic Crisis. As desperate as countries had been, the practice had been judged illegal before the war ended, and not out of sympathy for those drafted into that particular military program. 

Doctor Azarkeyvan took her chin, checking her eyes and testing her pulse and vitals with a hand-scanner. He clucked to himself as he jotted down notes on his holo-pad. With a satisfied nod, he motioned the handlers to proceed. "She's stable." 

Lena bowed her head and held out her arms as the two nearest handlers disconnected her pistols and a third divested her of the accelerator harness, while the other three kept actuators at the ready. Talon's red logo went dark once the accelerator lost power and the brilliant cyan of her anchor filled the exposed space, an almost garish contrast to the red and black of her combat suit. 

Once they stepped back, she dutifully headed for the main hall, standard procedure requiring her to report to the central communications department. There, the audio and visual data recorded by her accelerator would be uploaded and reviewed and her performance evaluated. As always, she ignored the phalanx around her. 

Scanning the large chamber loaded with computers and monitors, Lena spotted Reaper standing at ease on the command ledge. She was tempted to bound over the rail and a bank of computers but knew that would land her in a writhing heap, so she walked down the steps, forced to go at an angle, until she faced him. 

"Target and potential accessories eliminated," she reported flatly, studying his impassive, white, owl mask. Every now and then she could catch a flicker of his eyes through the slits, if she watched closely enough. 

Reaper grunted. "Yes, an explosion and inferno tends to ensure that," he drawled. 

She glanced at the largest monitor, which was broadcasting the first news reports, shaky and out of focus video feeds from the site of a violent massacre. A hotel was in the background, roiling fire and smoke obscuring most of the building, emergency vehicles filling the street. 

She looked away, finding an interesting computer bank to study. The bits and bobs of the mission that her impaired working memory had managed to process were enough for her. 

Reaper went to the handler holding her accelerator and plucked out a concealed data chip, slipping it into the port of the nearest free computer. It wasn't that he couldn't stream it directly but that leaving the data in her accelerator was a security risk. A hard copy and fresh chip ensured that information didn't linger where others might find the unedited data. 

That computer monitor lit up with a cacophony of flashing gunshots, blurring and abruptly skipping images between bouts of hissing static from when she was in the Slipstream. It was the delighted laughter that was hardest to ignore, out of place amongst the sounds of battle and desperate fear. 

She grimaced. 

"Tracer," Reaper warned quietly. 

She pivoted on one foot to obediently face the monitor, observing the footage from an increasing mental distance that muffled the audio and left her detached. 

Some young woman who was her — was not her — was positively dancing through a team of security guards and omnics in pursuit of a politician. His wife, their bodyguards, three reporters and, quite by accident, a seeing eye dog all died in bursts of bright blue light and bloody sprays. Its owner had been screaming hysterically and Lena could hear Tracer shouting back at the blind woman to shut her gobbin' trap. 

"It seems you were using the term accessories a bit liberally," Reaper noted dryly. 

Lena had long since stopped trying to smile when she was back down. "Can't incite terror through moderation, right?" 

Reaper grunted noncommittally, watching the unfolding footage keenly. He knew as well as she did that the combat drugs created near complete disinhibition. A deeply seated aversion would often remain in place, such as a severe phobia or strong emotional attachment, but all other moral restraint went by the wayside. 

"I like dogs," he said as if musing on a philosophical point. "Why do you shoot them so often?" 

"Sorry, sir," she said cautiously, admitting with grudging wariness, "It's...they bark." 

He hummed, glancing over at her, moving enough that the edges of his body hazed in and out of existence. Like her, he was no longer quite alive. "We really need to do something about that noise sensitivity." 

Lena ground her teeth lightly, taking stock of the handlers surrounding her, checking for anyone curling fingers in toward their actuator. While Reaper didn't throw tantrums, his judgments were frequently mercurial. 

She wet her lips with the barest tip of her tongue. 'Need to do something about...' invariably resulted in grueling endurance training. There was no way to deaden sensory input when doped without mitigating the desired behavior in the process. She didn't want to think about prolonged, high-pitched noises, aversion training or the consequences of failing. 

"Problem for another day. Return to your quarters, clean up and change into the provided clothes." Reaper closed the distance between them enough to crowd her, for her to crane her head back and expose her throat. "Do not embellish or alter them. You've investors to impress tonight." 

"Yes, sir," she acknowledged softly. 

He waved a gauntleted hand regally, pointing at two of her handlers, before striding away. 

The two he had denoted fell in step, slightly behind and two either side of her as she left the room. 

Her quarters were structured for comfort and the illusion of security, but the door locked from the outside and the room itself was over twenty meters underground. Even with access to the accelerator, she couldn't blink that distance, assuming it were even possible. She could sometimes make it through transparent obstructions but walls usually stopped her. It had taken a number of broken bones to convince the R&D team that she wasn't lying about that. 

No, it was a very large, well-appointed vault and she refused to forget it, to slip into thinking of it as a safe spot. She knew how captor bonding worked, Reaper knew that she knew, and he knew that she knew. At the same time, her quarters were the only area of any base where she was permitted to rest as much as she pleased. 

Stepped through the deep doorway, she went to the nearest wall, faced it and spread out her arms. The procedure remained ridiculous. While her hand-to-hand combat skills had improved, every one of her handlers out-sized and massed her. Without the accelerator, she was essentially harmless to them. 

The man to her left fit a second vial of medication into her siphon and she swayed dizzily, dropping back onto the hinged wedges that functioned as her heels for stability, as the tranquilizer hit her bloodstream. Utter bollocks. As soon as she was steady again, they began to efficiently remove the modular armor, tossing the filthy composite panels in a clattering pile for cleaning and repair. 

Once they had her down to the circuit laden refrigeration suit, she lowered her arms and tipped her head back sleepily as they bagged the armor. Ah, that was right; she had set her ceiling to display a starry night sky. She didn't need the body-suit here where the room's chill offset her elevated body temperature, but it was crucial in combat when exertion raised her core level to potentially lethal degree. 

Hearing the hiss and _shunk_ of the door locking closed, she stepped away from the steel alloy wall. Peeling off her suit, she made her way past a gaming rig and sprawling couch on her way to the bath for a tolerably tepid shower. 

Less than ten minutes later, she was finger combing her short, damp hair and studying the outfit laid out on her bed. At least the publicity team was getting sorted. 

* * *

Lena stood at ease beside Doctor Pirouz Azarkeyvan, eyes drooped half shut, too sedated to actually be bored. The doctor was talking to another corporate officer, an American again, hardly a surprise. 

She had been too young, naive and arrogant when she joined Overwatch to wonder about their excellent funding, especially that devoted to Blackwatch. But, surely Commander Morrison and Reyes had known, especially the latter. Perhaps not Morrison? She remembered him as such an idealist, as much as she had been. 

"- a bit ironic that she's a Brit, though, eh?" the business man asked with a short laugh. 

"Oh, I don't know," Doctor Azarkeyvan replied, amusement in his tone despite this being a perennial joke, "it's a bit appropriate, all things given." 

"Such a little thing to be so dangerous," the man continued in bemusement. 

"We like to think of her as Talon's terrier." 

The man guffawed at the tired pun. 

Lena kept staring ahead vacantly through the meandering crowd at another solid wall. No windows at this affair to offer a certain sniper pot shots at key funders or Talon officers. She wondered how many of the guests understood that they were in a potential death trap from Talon itself. At least some of them, she supposed. Senior business personnel were arrogant and conniving but they weren't stupid, not the way many senior officers might be by virtue of being promoted based on time served rather than true ability. 

Lena's gaze traveled to a group of Americans schmoozing with some local Arabs. They were too far away to hear as more than a racket of indistinct noise, but they periodically laughed and gestured amongst each other. She understood exactly which raptor wielded Talon, who had funded Blackwatch through the amiable cover of Overwatch. Reyes was a true patriot. 

She looked away in feigned disinterest before the doctor could catch her staring. As far as she knew, Morrison had been a true patriot as well, but an idealist set up as a patsy by the political players. A capable officer understood politics if they wanted to stay ahead of the proverbial guillotine and, in that respect, Reyes had always been the superior. 

Her eyes flitted back over the guests, estimating the percentage of Americans. There was nothing subtle about the arrangement anymore, not here in this room, nor the wider world. 

Like most wars, the Omnic Crisis was borne of converging factors. The United States elected a jingoistic leader who lead the country onto a wave of nationalism and new age imperialism. As more and more countries were affected, the United Nations grew desperate and finally imposed sanctions. Unaffiliated countries climbed over each other to join that European alliance, including the Asian block countries. Russia claimed neutrality but financial trails tied them inexorably to America. 

Then the Omnics ushered in an unprecedented level of socialism that sent capitalist economies all over the world into rapid death spirals as manual and service labor dried up. In those countries, no jobs meant no wages, which meant no spending, even on necessities. Given that the United States had only two exports — Entertainment and Armament — she supposed it had been desperation that drove it. 

No one paid any real attention to who developed the primary operational software for the Omnics until those individuals turned up dead or missing, one by one, over the course of the war. At the time, their deaths had been attributed to hysterical fear and misguided revenge. The end result was an end to free, robotic, slave labor and the United States ostensibly assisting shattered countries in stabilizing their governments. Only their soldiers never left until contracted corporations finished strip-mining local resources. 

She wished she had known all that when she came to consciousness inside Talon's Recall Chamber and Reaper offered her a new lease on life. Maybe disgust and good old fashioned patriotism would have overridden her fear of living as a ghost in time. Maybe. But she hadn't refused. She had signed their contract, gone to sleep on a hospital gurney and woken up with an anchor rod implanted through her chest as if she were a bug pinned to a board and labeled: Present Reality. 

She hadn't known about the lungs until the first time she ran during physical therapy and it had taken her three days further to realize two of her vertabrae were missing. The rear of the anchor, capped to avoid glowing through her blazer, replaced those joints and wrapped around her spinal cord. 

"- concerned about losing control of such a dangerous agent?" 

Oh, here it came. She braced herself. 

Doctor Azarkeyvan deftly touched his middle finger to an actuator on the pad of his thumb. 

Lena's chronal anchor released a paralyzing surge of electricity, effectively gagging her as it jolted her heart out of rhythm. She choked once, then gasped for air, hunched over and shaking as her pacemaker corrected her cardiac function. Wiping away a trail of spittle with the back of her blazer's sleeve, she slowly righted her posture and resumed staring aimlessly. There was little she could do about the sneer tugging at her lips or tic at the corner of one eye. The shock always triggered an increase in her adrenaline levels. 

The doctor touched a different actuator and she felt her heart and breathing slow, and with them, her temper eased from a small dose of tranquilizer and dopamine. 

"It's really not a concern," the doctor explained mildly. 

The businessman gave a soft laugh, rubbing a finger along the side of his nose in an affected gesture. "A shame we can't do that with all our soldiers. Wouldn't need MP's anymore." 

She tuned out their conversation, their smarmy mutual back pats. Really, why didn't they just go snog in the lavatories while they were at it? The motion of a cocktail server bearing a tray of wine glasses caught her eye and she sidled toward him as the doctor's attention was distracted by the other man's departure. 

"Don't you dare," the doctor warned her softly. "You know perfectly well that you aren't permitted alcohol." 

Or coffee or chocolate. She sighed loudly and pointedly, then said, "Thirteen." 

"Do you know," he said conversationally, resuming their casual stroll around the floor, "there are times that I forget you are a woman, but then you do something like that." 

She wrinkled her nose at his smile. "What century were you born in, again?" 

His smile grew. "This world does not have a single culture, yet women all seem to have the same disgusted sigh. Why is that?" 

"Because men are all assholes the same way, duh." 

"You might be a bit biased there. Is your heart bothering you?" 

"Gee, I dunno. Someone keeps zapping me into cardiac arrest," she answered, bitterness lacing her words. 

She and the doctor both knew that Talon could easily replace her heart with something far more durable and efficient, but that would defeat their favorite strategies of dissuading her undesirable behaviors. Lena took a deep breath, trying to ease some of the tension on her chest, feeling the comforting pull of her embedded anchor. It wasn't bad yet. 

"We've less than an hour more. You can stay on good behavior until then," the doctor warned politely as a tall thin man in a ghutrah, trailed by a far younger woman in a shayla approached them. 

Fourteen, Lena mentally added, and probably a rough one given their Sunni audience. 

"Imam Shaheed Moghaddam, I believe?" Doctor Azarkeyvan greeted, touching his hand lightly to his chest and ignoring the woman. 

Well, she didn't need to ignore the woman. Hell, she could straight up hug the woman. Probably. It rather depended on how the Imam viewed Lena, given her orientation and the loosely masculine suit she was wearing. While she thought of it as a dress uniform, Shaheed might feel she ought to stick to the more traditional male greeting. 

As soon as Lena was sure the Imam and the head scientist were absorbed in small talk, she winked at the young woman in her brilliant red and gold finery. 

The woman rolled her lips into a tight light, fighting back a smile and ducked her head, but her cheeks flushed darker. 

Ah, someone slightly less than Godly, perhaps. Lena was starting to grin a bit in mischievous triumph when the shock hit her hard and she fell to her knees struggling to breathe. Dimly, she heard a woman's voice protesting in distressed Arabic, cut off by a man's irritated response. She tried to suck air in through clenched teeth, pressing one hand against her anchor where Talon's red logo cap glowed through her white dress shirt, but her lungs were paused. She gagged, sinking onto her elbows and seeing spots. 

"Do not," Doctor Azarkeyvan began in measured tones, "engage the Imam's daughter in any way, shape or form. Do I make myself clear?" 

She slapped a palm weakly on the floor, yielding through gesture, gasping as her lungs came back online. "Yes, sir," she wheezed. 

"Excellent." 

Lena clambered back up, picking a random point in the distance to watch, aware of the other woman's searching, concerned gaze but unable to respond to it. 

"If you will forgive Tracer's insolence — a less than charming aspect of her personality — I believe I've established the safety and efficiency of our program," Doctor Azarkeyvan said smoothly. 

As soon as the two guests left, Lena bared her teeth at the doctor. "What the fuck? I didn't do anything!" 

"Keep your voice down. I warned you to stay on good behavior and you are well aware of the laws in this country. Shaheed is a wealthy man who effectively controls the factory district. We will not have him withdrawing support because our primary field agent encouraged his only daughter into deviancy." 

"I don't think she needs encouragement," Lena muttered. 

"Oh, likely not," the doctor agree cheerily. "Chest pain or pressure?" 

"Some. Tolerable." 

He grunted, then flicked his fingers, motioning her to follow and led her out into a corridor. Palming a hypodermal injector, he waited until the hall was clear before pressing it to her neck. 

Lena leaned against the wall, letting her head fall back and raked a hand through her hair. She hadn't noticed the sweat on her forehead. After a moment, the constriction in her chest eased, more than she had realized, as the nanobots repaired cellular damage. 

"Better?" His gaze was off center as he regarded holographic figures projected by a scanner mounted on his temple tracking her vitals. 

"Yes, sir," she confirmed wanly. 

"Good." He patted her shoulder as if he were a fond father rather than the man responsible for manipulating her endocrine function in ways that turned her into a marionette. "Now, you have a little over a half hour to go. Be good and I will ensure a proper reward. But if I find you drunk, rude or trying to get your hand up some woman's skirt, you will end an otherwise stellar day in the Slipstream. Understood?" 

She swallowed thickly. "Yes, sir." 

"After you," he commanded, holding out an arm graciously. 

She closed her eyes briefly, then pushed off the wall and made her way back into the crowd of gawking investors. 

Whether because those nearby had witnessed her sudden display of temper or they were merely suspicious of their brief absence, no one immediately approached them. Lena eyed Azarkeyvan peripherally, veering toward the refreshment table. When he didn't stop her, she wolfed down several mystery items in quick succession. An elevated metabolism had its costs and an empty stomach always exacerbated her temper. She polished off her haphazard meal with a glass of water, draining it in a single pull. Thumping the glass down in the middle of some hors d'oeuvres, she spun on her heel and picked a random direction. 

There were only ten minutes left when a man whose stare she had felt for some time approached her and the doctor. She mentally counted to fifteen and mostly hoped she wouldn't puke. 

The man tried to meet her eyes before bowing slightly. "Teklile Tarik Kirubel," he said by way of introduction. "I have been studying your cheetah for some time and wished to see her up close." 

Lena blinked twice in confusion, vacant attention fixing back on their newest guest. 

"Pardon?" said Doctor Azarkeyvan. 

"Your cheetah, that you are mistaking for a dog," Teklile explained, pointing at Lena with one slim, dark finger. "It is an easy mistake as they are much like dogs for they will wear a collar, take a leash and chase prey on command." 

"I'm sorry, Mr Kir-" 

"Teklile. Kirubel was my grandfather." 

"Ah, my apologies. It's only that I've never heard anyone call Tracer to a cheetah though, in retrospect, it's a logical comparison." 

Teklile nodded his head and said with utter sincerity, "Understandable, as she wears the wrong colors," but a faint smile played on his lips. 

Lena heard, rather than saw, Azarkeyvan hesitate in either confusion or suspicion and she found herself begriming to smile at his repeated fumbling. It was a rare sensation for her while sober. 

"Gold and white with a bit of black," Teklile clarified. "My grandmother worked at a sanctuary when they were still found in the wild. She said they were fretful, nervous cats that required great space to be comfortable. They were so much like dogs that the latter could be used as companion animals for them, to provide a sense of security so that the cheetahs in captivity would relax enough to breed." 

Lena's smile vanished into a thin frown at the direction his analogy had taken. 

"Ah, but now I have upset the lady. That was not my intention and I see now how I may have given the wrong impression. Please forgive my misstep," Teklile said while looking directly at her. 

She had to pause before saying, "It's fine." 

"Mm." 

"I, er, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Teklile. While cheetahs sound fascinating, is there anything you wished to know about Talon's augmented soldier program?" The doctor smiled. "Were you present for the opening demonstration of Tracer's abilities? There is a recording if you wish to view it." 

Teklile shook his head. "I was present. It was quite impressive and," he held up a palm, "you need not demonstrate your control over her." He turned his attention to Tracer again. "I suspect you find it quite tedious." 

She clamped her teeth together, sliding her gaze away. 

"Mm." Teklile returned to Azarkeyvan. "I only wished to remind you, with the utmost respect, that it is wise to remember a cheetah is a cat, not a dog." 

"Um," the doctor responded, "yes?" 

"One might beat and starve a dog but retain its obedience for, by nature, it wishes to please, but a cat is pragmatic. It demands food and comfort and cannot be tormented too frequently without sufficient reward or practical reason to remain," Teklile rambled on pleasantly. "Else..." 

"I understand what you're implying but we keep Tracer under close supervision at all times. Talon is well aware of the risks in an agent who can run fast and teleport through time," the doctor said with audible irritation. 

"Yes, but do you know what the cat does?" 

Azarkeyvan sighed exactly as Lena had earlier and her returning smile blossomed into a grin of malicious glee. She didn't know Teklile from the King of England but he had called her a cheetah and prevented a wholly unnecessary shock so she liked him, as much as she could any of Talon's co-conspirators. 

"What does the cat do?" Azarkeyvan dutifully asked. 

"It waits until you are not home, pisses on your favorite things, then rushes to greet you at the door in fawning affection. And when you lean over to scratch its ears — for what a fine, loyal, loving pet your cat is — it dashes through the door you neglected to close, leaps over the fence and disappears to find a better home. Even if that home is a dumpster in a back alley." 

Azarkeyvan cleared his throat. "As I assured you-" 

"Yes, yes," Teklile cut him off, waving a hand dismissively. "It is merely that I have great admiration for your finest field agent and do not wish to see Talon's investment lost through potential mishandling." 

"Research and Development will certainly take your advice into consideration as we continue to develop our augmentation program," the doctor promised. 

"Yes, I am certain you will," Teklile almost drawled, understanding the dismissive nature of that phrasing. 

Giving Azarkeyvan his shoulder, Teklile bowed again to Lena. "It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am happy I was able to give you a smile." 

Lena let out an involuntary snort of laughter before good sense could stop her. Despite the doctor's eyes boring into her skull, she grinned. "You're alright for a bloke." 

"I am pleased to hear that," Teklile replied with a faint smile teasing his lips, holding is bow, "and am honored to have made your acquaintance, Ms Oxton." 

She blinked again, in part over his chivalrous manner but also the use of her given name. At these events, she was always a tool called Tracer. She was too nonplussed to respond as the man parted ways, blending into the crowd. 

"Manners," Azarkeyvan hissed through clenched teeth, fingertips hovering over the actuator. 

She curled her lips, not quite suppressing her sudden desire to bare her teeth at him. "Oi, I was right charming, Doc. Don't you blame me because he put you in a snit." 

Watching the muscles in his jaw flex repeatedly, she braced herself just in case she hadn't dodged the final bullet. It wouldn't be the first time she was penalized for something completely beyond her control or responsibility. The doctor was usually a proponent of avoiding excessive punishment as it made his job of maintaining her health that much more difficult, but he was also vain about his achievements and Teklile had snubbed him. 

Azarkeyvan took a deep breath and stretched the fingers of his hand outward, dropping his arm. He didn't apologize, shifting his attention to his communication unit and requesting information about Teklile Tarik Kirubel. A quick series of queries left him frowning before he snarled something in Persian. 

More calmly, with clipped anger, he murmured, "Perimeter Security, all units, locate and detain Teklile Tarik Kirubel." 

Lena rocked forward off her heels, numb acceptance settling into place. 

"Stay," he ordered, without looking, and she rolled back to rest. "It'll take too long to fetch the accelerator." 

She kept looking at the doctor expectantly but she knew not to demand information. 

"Your nice bloke," Azarkeyvan explained, "is back in Ethiopia with his family because he turned down the invite." 

"Oh. Well. Guess I can see how that's a snag." 

He crossed his arms, tipping his head back as reports were made by the security teams. "And our spy has vanished. Wonderful." 

* * *

Lena stepped into her vault of a room, leaving her requisite escort in the hall, and came to a dead stop as the door slid shut behind her. She had assumed that with the doctor in a pique that any promises he had made were null and void, as they often were, but there was a stranger in her room. After another second to scan for an identification badge, hung on a lanyard around the woman's neck, Lena resumed walking. 

The woman remained seated in the deep, sky blue, sofa chair, long legs crossed and leaning back as if in ease, but the fingers of her right hand curled and tightened together. She was a professional, but she was scared. 

"Hey," Lena greeted her, while checking the low bureau for her evening medications. 

There was the familiar vial that held a powerful, slow-release sedative that would lower he heart-rate enough that she could sleep easily. Beside it was a transdermal syringe filled with a tiny quantity of something. She picked it up, turning the syringe over to look for some identification or explanation and found a contents label. It was a high-dose narcotic, far too much for simple pain relief. It was...a courtesy. 

She set it down, glancing over at the woman in question, raising her eyebrows. 

The woman cleared her throat. "Good evening," she said with a slight accent, "I have been hired to serve you." 

The corner of Lena's lip tugged in bitter amusement but she had learned quickly into her time with Talon to take what she could get; it might not be offered again and sex rarely was. Pride kept her refusing in the beginning, along with a practical desire to resist reward-conditioning. Pragmatism ultimately forced her to accept. 

"My name's Lena," she prompted. 

There it was, a flash of startled confusion amidst the woman's growing tension. "Lamia Boulos," she supplied. "Should I–" 

Lena kept her gaze from straying too long on Lamia but she traced over the lean body wrapped in a green dress, the straight dark hair, before turning away toward the bathroom. "They didn't make you cool your heels for too long in this tomb, did they?" 

"I- ah, no. I received the call about an hour ago and Talon provided a shuttle." 

Lena screwed her brows together. That would have been during the party but it was incredibly short notice for her superiors to find a willing sex worker within very particular and narrow parameters. "An hour?" 

"Oh, well, I was first contacted with the contractual offer over a month ago," Lamia explained, her expression increasingly quizzical, as her tone faltered, "pending completion of my obligation." 

"Mm," Lena intoned on a nod. There was always that damning contract. 

She went into her bathroom, shutting the door and leaning heavily against it. Rationally, she knew this was a pretty great reward for a murder spree followed by being paraded around like a prize fighting dog. She even knew, courtesy of the doctor, that pleasure was essential to healthy function. More pertinent, so was the management of doping's side-effects. 

It exacerbated the subject's need to seek out pleasure. Almost ten years ago, Dresden needed to be quarantined when their army lost control of a regiment of dope-sol's. Consumed by battle lust and having demolished a smaller force of omnics, the soldiers descended on the local populace. It took years for the German government to pay reparations to the victims and that incident lead directly to the wide-spread discontinuation of that form of augmentation. Only the prison-industrial complex that had freely supplied the conscripts was dismayed to lose such a convenient way to dispose of excess prisoners. Chips had soon replaced dope but there was wide-spread protest of how close the results came to omnics. 

Lena squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her knuckles against the door. Two months into her indenture, she had become unmanageable during missions, so completely distracted by sexual desire that she was unable to follow orders. Reaper himself had dragged her to Azarkeyvan and demanded she be chemically castrated. Through her horror, she remembered the doctor explain very regrettably that the neural mechanisms overlapped and doing so, while possible, would result in significant reduction in doping efficacy. 

Reaper had snarled and called her worse than a cat in heat, tossed her into her quarters, then introduced a woman some time later. It had worked but Lena also recalled huddling in a corner afterward, forehead against her knees, arms wrapped over the back of her head in shame. They had taken her lungs to control her voice, her lower legs for the inconvenience of sprained joints and, in the end, her self-control. 

Like hell would they take the dignity she had left. She was not doped and so long as her heart rate didn't climb too high, there was no danger of it triggering an adrenal surge. She would not assault the poor woman. Not...not at first. As always, she reminded herself that this was no different than her days with the R.A.F. except that she didn't need to make the effort of going to a pub and flirting a chit out of her clothes and into a bed. No different, except that she needed to step back from herself the slightest bit. 

A few minutes later, Tracer came back out and grinned at Lamia. "Expected to get mauled, eh?" 

After a beat pause, Lamia stood smoothly, as graceful as a dancer. "I was expecting something different, yes. If I might be of assistance?" 

Tracer paused in the middle of pulling off her blazer, allowing Lamia to take over. At this range, she could smell both the woman's light perfume and own scent. It immediately tugged at her core and she needed to suck in her breath, tipping her head back slightly so Lamia could get at her shirt buttons. The skin of her throat and chest prickled under Lamia's fingers, her touch gentle and sure, though her expression was assessing her client. 

Pent up arousal was hitting Tracer quickly now that she had accepted the woman's availability, mouth going dry as she swallowed, tip of her tongue against her upper lip. Her fingers twitched but she made no move to grab or direct Lamia. She recalled a time when she had brimmed with innate confidence, a trait more attractive than any physical feature. 

"Is it okay if I ask why you agreed to this?" Tracer asked cautiously, allowing Lamia to guide her body, shirt pulling free. 

Lamia's composure faltered again and her eyes, hazel, gold flecks against the green, met Tracer's. "They're going to help my sister. She has...has a medical condition that I can't afford." She swallowed. "On top of my own." She found the fasteners for the low profile cooling vest while speaking, fingers ghosting over the ventilated fabric, eyeing it with curiosity. 

Tracer caught Lamia's hand, forestalling her. "But not yours?" 

"There's no help for me. This will be a better way to go." She tugged her hand free and pushed free the vest, Tracer obligingly holding her arms out in turns. Only then did Lamia's eyes fix on the bright red, glowing emblem on Tracer's chest. 

Tracer snorted softly, reaching between her breasts to twist off the cap. "Branding shite," she muttered, flinging the disk into a corner as the brilliant blue of the anchor filled the room. "Lights," she called out and the room dimmed, shadows jumping from the eerie blue, interrupted by a single red dot in an upper corner. She ignored that resolutely, as usual. She liked to pretend it was a chemical compound sensor. 

It would be easier now to imagine that this tall, dark-haired woman was the one she wanted, that everyone in Talon knew she wanted because she could hide nothing while doped. Her pulse was jumping as Lamia's hands glided over her hips, peeling away the tight, truncated slacks. Tracer helped, lifting and angling her lower legs so that the cloth didn't catch on the prosthetics. 

Lamia stayed on one knee, hand wrapping loosely around the hydraulic portion below the knee of one, looking up to ask, "Do you have sensation?" 

Tracer shook her head tersely, making a sound of negation. "In the pads; just basic pressure everywhere else. Let me know if I jab you." She might have said more but Lamia slid that hand up along the inside of her thigh and her breath stuttered, coming out in a rush as Lamia drew back. "Fuck," she hissed, hips twisting of their own accord. 

In the past, she would have said more, asked for what she wanted. More often, she would have asked what her partner wanted and given more than she took. But Lamia wasn't a lover; she was a temporary solution. None of those were the reasons Tracer limited her speech in her quarters, so she pleaded with her eyes and a soft moan as Lamia held a palm over her mons. 

Lamia nodded, using the mildest pushes to direct Tracer against the nearest wall. Smoothing her hands down her sides, Lamia pinned her hips in place while genuflecting. The second hand slid down to Tracer's knee, fingers pressing into the soft hollow in tacit order. 

Tracer pushed her head against the wall and hooked the leg over Lamia's shoulder, concerned until the woman wrapped her forearm around the prosthetic, holding it in place. Servos in her standing leg compensated for the increased weight, her knee stiffening to brace her. Breathing shakily, she glanced down to find Lamia smiling faintly. 

Having gained her attention, Lamia dipped her head and licked. 

Tracer's gasp turned into a mewl because it had been far too long since someone had touched her without the undercurrent of violence or hostility. She could feel her skin flushing with uncomfortable heat and briefly regretting discarding the cooling vest, but holy mother– She slapped a palm against the wall, arching her hips forward. 

With surprising strength, Lamia forced her back into position, the fingers on Tracer's hip tightening painfully. 

Tracer stiffened in protest, clapping a hand over Lamia's. Her entire life with Talon was nothing but pain, fear and madness. She wanted none of those things here and now. 

Lamia loosened her grip, taking a quick moment to drop a kiss on Tracer's inner thigh in apology, and began murmuring in Arabic. The words were too rapid and soft to catch, but her tone was soothing and reassuring as her mouth was hot and probing. 

Tracer relaxed, a bit of Lena slipping out as her lips parted on short gasps and moans in between begging whines. Everything was coiling and tensing, a tremor in her thighs as she rode. Hand still over Lamia's, she slid her thumb back and forth over the ridge of her wrist bone, her grip twitching and clenching. 

Looking down again she saw Lamia's eyes were closed, the curve of her cheeks suggesting happiness and then she sighed into a moan of her own. 

Tracer grabbed a fistful of the woman's dress, bucking with a short, hoarse shout as she felt the tell-tale thrum alongside her orgasm, felt Lamia lick and swallow without hesitation. Releasing her grip, she scrabbled at the smooth wall as her body began to slide down, regardless of what her prosthetics were trying to do. 

Lamia caught her easily, holding her upright with one hand under Lena's armpit. "There," she said tenderly, "it will be better now." 

Lena pressed the side of her face against the wall. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't fucking cry, no matter how desperately she needed another go. 

Lamia pulled at her dress, peeling back the shoulder wraps to reveal toned muscle and sepia skin. "You wish to touch me, yes?" 

Not fuck, touch. Smart woman, like the real thing. Lena mused on why the doctor and his team made this much of an effort to assuage her desire. Despite Azerkeyvan's moments of seeming sympathy or kindness, he was a scientific, logical sort. Coming from a STEM background herself, she found him largely predictable but this always puzzled her. Was it just because he didn't want to lose his pet project to mismanagement? 

Watching her closely, Lamia licked her lips, wiping her chin against the shoulder of her dress, the same side Lena was gripping tightly. The firm grip she had on Lena's hip eased into a caress as she ducked the shoulder supporting her leg, allowing it to slide down to the floor. Then she ran both hands up Lena's body, pointedly drawing one right over the anchor as if though it weren't there. 

Lamia made a thoughtful noise. "Your skin is hot. Is that normal? Do you need the vest for comfort?" 

Lena found herself almost smiling in bemusement. "Women usually complain that it's freezing in here." 

Lamia nodded with a quirk of her lips, a dimpled shadow cast by blue light. "Normal then, yes?" 

"These days. Yeah. I should, uh..." Lena pressed her scalp back against the unadorned wall. "Some of the things you've probably heard about me are true, luv. Once I start on you, I might not stop." 

Instead of an answer, she felt lips on her exposed throat seeking out the most sensitive areas. "Should I fight back?" 

Lena tried to crane her head to catch Lamia's eyes but the woman forestalled the motion with a hand along her jaw. She licked her lips hesitantly. It would be easier to pretend if Lamia fought back. Unless the woman had proper martial training, it might be too easy. 

"Who would you like me to be?" 

Lena became aware that the grip along her jaw had begun to twist uncomfortably, forcing her up on her toes and she felt the first flush of adrenaline. She grabbed the woman's wrist and squeezed in warning. "Oi." 

Lamia raised her head to grin playfully. Without letting go, despite the pain she had to be experiencing, she tugged awkwardly at her dress until it slid open along the shoulder and breast. She stretched out the exposed arm, bending and flexing. "I was very well paid where I worked, until I became unacceptably ill. Now, stop me if you are able," she teased while breaking Lena's grip. 

Later, when Lena was curled on her side in temporary exhaustion, her mind drifted in and out of the present. Bruises aside, Lamia had drawn her in close, sleepily tucking Lena into the embrace as if she knew all along that it was her goal. She probably had, Lena mused, allowing her eyes to close and enjoyed it as long as her body temperature would allow. 

In a scant few minutes, she was forced to wriggle free as she began to sweat again, but Lamia only made a vague noise of protest as Lena rose. After a few seconds of consideration, she decided it was safe enough to go shower, that Lamia was too tired to try and brain her with a chair when Lena came back out. 

By then, Lamia was asleep. Hazily, Lena drew on a tank and pants and picked up the second syringe. She rolled it between her fingers, glancing between it and the door to he quarters morosely. Rubbing at her temple, she went to shake Lamia awake, grinning falsely at her bleary confusion. 

"Love to let you sleep but y'can't stay here. Time to go, luv." 

Lena waited as Lamia dressed and gathered her purse and visitor's pass. She escorted her to the door, tapping the intercom and bluntly declaring that she was done. The door opened with a speed that told her that the guards outside already knew, hardly a surprise. Forcing he to announce it was a pretense of privacy. 

Lamia was chewing her lower lip, the only sign of her unease trickling out from behind her poise. 

Sighing quietly to draw her attention, Lena reached up to lay her fingers lightly on Lamia's jaw. "Think happy thoughts, yeah?" 

Whatever Lamia might have said was cut off with a gasp as she slapped the area of her neck where Lena had just injected the narcotics. Lena held her gaze as startled confusion gave way to rapid blinking, a slurred protest and a moment of crumpled pain as Lamia flapping an uncooperative hand against her chest. She listened to her respiration quickly slow, stutter and stop as her expression went lax and eyes blank. 

Lena stepped back into her quarters as one of the guards caught the body. 

* * *

Lena was ready to gnaw her arm off the when she woke the next afternoon, but she could hear multiple voices from within the swing room. With the light-blocking caps latched to both ends of the anchor, they couldn't see any blue luminescence bleed around the edges of the door, so she crossed her arms and settled in to wait. Deviating from the proscribed path to visit a neighboring mess would result in swift and severe punishment but given the topic of discussion, she was loathe to enter. It wasn't a surprising subject of gossip but she had hoped to catch the usual cohort between their own mealtimes. 

Fuhrmann was laughing, urging a man with an unfamiliar voice to watch what Lena knew was the surveillance footage from her quarters. Their puerile and invasive behavior was as routine as her medical checkups. Though she no longer experienced any outrage or embarrassment, she could feel her mouth settling into a deep, flat, frown. It was as if they had no access to high quality porn, which she knew was complete bollocks. 

"Pardon?" the new man asked and she flinched at his Welsh accent. 

The others laughed, asking him when he started on asset security detail, promptly turning the official term for Lena's handlers into a crude innuendo. They urged him again to watch. They all did. There was a betting pool. Did he want in? 

"Ah, no thank you. Seems like an unnecessary invasion of privacy," he declined again. 

Lena raised her head, screwing up her brows in an echo of the amusement that had everyone in the swing room falling silent. Then the laughter erupted and everyone was jeering at him. 

"He'll change his tune the first time he needs to clean up after her and send some poor woman back to her family in a box," Alberda, the team's supervisor, declared confidently. She snorted. "You be glad you didn't start with us last night," she added, her voice growing closer to Lena's position. 

Alberda was grinning as she walked into the hallway but she sucked in her breath harshly, spilling some of her remaining coffee, when she spotted Lena. 

Lena didn't move except to track the configuration of Alberda's fingers, reflexively preparing to begin her day with wholly unwarranted pain. 

"Where's Higgins?" the supervisor growled. 

"He fell," Lena bit out as Alberda reflexively curled her middle finger to hover over the actuator. 

"Is he alive?" 

"Yes." Lena held her eyes. There were exactly two people in Talon that she addressed as sir and this woman wasn't one of them. 

Alberda finished her coffee, pointing toward the swing room. "Get in there and sit down." 

Doing as ordered, Lena sat on a bench at an unoccupied cafeteria table, placing her hands up on the gray surface. She swallowed back her frustration, knowing that these petty aggravations were calculated to stoke her pent up resentment. The combat medications could not create emotions from whole cloth but Talon needed her frothing with hate and seething for retaliation when they dropped her onto a target. They needed her emotions to boil over and scald everyone in her vicinity until the anger run dry and everything was wet with blood. 

"Trevor, allow me to introduce you to Tracer and your first test." Alberda leaned against the table the new man was using, glancing down at him as he twisted to face Lena. "As I assume you know, she is not permitted to move within this facility without a minimum of one escort, ideally two. That would be Higgins, who is laying unconscious in a nearby hallway — likely outside her quarters — because she assaulted him. What is the appropriate penalty?" 

Trevor studied Lena before opening his mouth, then closing it with apparent reconsideration. "Am I permitted to speak to her directly?" 

"Yes." 

"Did you attack Higgins unprovoked, with the intent to harm him?" 

"No and yes." 

"Is he severely injured or otherwise crippled?" 

"No." 

He ghosted his fingers of a wrist-mounted communications unit, pulling up a small holographic projection of Higgins. He hummed thoughtfully. "Assuming your first answers were respective, how did he provoke you?" 

"He crowded me." 

"He violated the two meter distance requirement?" 

"Yes." For the umpteenth time. 

"Did he have cause?" 

"No." The ass loved to loom over her like some wannabe drill sergeant. 

"Thank you for your honesty," Trevor said, making no move to reach for his actuator. Instead, he looked up at the supervisor. "I recommend that Higgins be reprimanded for violation of standard handling protocol. Is there anything else, sir?" 

Lena had the discomfiting sensation of feeling exactly the way Alberda and Fuhrmann looked right then, examining Trevor as if he were a strange new alien species that had crawled out from a large rock. The new guys always wanted to test the controls and give their tyrannical power a whirl. It never failed. This man spoke like either an officer, barrister or doctor. Hell, maybe he was some unholy combination of the three. 

"Welp," Alberda declared with glib finality, "the boss does as he will." 

She might have added more but they all paused to watch the doorway expectantly as running footsteps approached before the door was hurled open. 

Higgins stumbled into the room, fingers already curled, waiting only to identify Lena's position. "You miserable little bi–" 

Lena had begun bracing before he entered the room and now she gritted her teeth, squinting in grim anticipation. 

Alberda caught him by the armed wrist before he got any further than that. "Soldier," she began in low warning, "you are in violation of handling protocol which had now made you derelict in your duties. Welcome to shit patrol." 

The tall, rangy man peered down at Alberda in disbelief, a large goose egg forming above his right temple. "You're going to take that monster's word for it?" 

"I have watched you get in her space on multiple occasions and, so far, she has done an admirable job of not burying you beside Markovic. You do recall what happened to Trevor's predecessor...and why?" she asked in a facetious drawl. "You do recall how displeased the doctor was with the incident?" 

Higgins worked his jaw in frustration, throwing Lena a heated glare, before forcing an expression of deference onto his face for Alberda's benefit. "If you are implying that I would ever–" 

"I am not implying anything," Alberda said, cutting him off. "I am warning you not to act as if you are disposable. Half-pint over there should never have been able to lay you out unless you were so close that you couldn't even see her telegraph. So, yes, I absolutely believe her." Alberda let go of his wrist, stepping back with a smile. "You've six floors to cover, so double-time it." 

"Yes, sir," he mumbled, leaving the room without meeting anyone's eyes. 

Lena wanted to rejoice over the tiny victory, courtesy of new man Trevor, but knew that Higgins would lay into her with the actuator once Alberda's back was turned. She had over-reacted that evening, unsettled as she always was after largely innocent people died as a result of her actions. Higgins had opened her door without announcing himself as her view was obstructed by the shirt she was donning, then was suddenly far too close. Her heart had leapt into her throat and she tripped him reflexively. 

Her stomach gurgled and she wondered if it was safe to move yet. 

Fuhrmann rested his left arm on the tabletop from where he watched, focused on Lena. A faint smirk tugged at his lips. 

Under the table, she twisted one footpad back and forth, jostling her knee and listened to Alberda moving about out of sight. She heard the beeping of codes being entered into a food dispenser, the soft whirring and clicks of products being prepared and arranged, then Alberda opened two hatches. 

Alberda set a large bowl of beef stew, several slices of brown bread and half a stick of warm butter in front of Lena before pointedly stepping back to the regulation distance. "Eat up; you're going to have a long day. Because I'm a reasonable person and no one likes mopping up vomit, you get two hours before you need to report to training." She glanced at her chrono. "Starting now." 

Lena fingered the near useless plastic spork beside her bowl before giving in to the urge to close her eyes momentarily. She could guess what she would be enduring to such a degree that it would make her sick, given Reaper's reaction to the assassination footage. She didn't want to think about it. 

"Trevor," Alberda ordered pleasantly, "you're on duty. I've a course to oversee. Fuhrmann, with me. " 

Lena was eating by the time she heard the door swing shut behind the two, ignoring Trevor as if he were human shaped furniture. She bared her teeth when she heard him shift closer to her, the breadth of the table keeping him safe. 

"I want to apologize for the poor start we had, Squadron Leader," Trevor said politically, "it wasn't how I meant to introduce myself." When she didn't immediately respond, he continued, "Captain Tomi Trevor, retired, Royal Marines, psyche unit." 

Lena forced herself to pick up a piece of bread, mechanically scooping up some butter with her fingers, but couldn't finish the motion. A glob of butter slowly detached itself and landed in her stew, spreading into a pool of grease globules. Her hand jerked and she smeared the butter onto the bread, keeping Trevor out of focus. 

She had known she wanted to fly since she was a little girl but watching her home neighborhood overrun by omnics had rammed home how she wanted to do it. Like so many of her peers, especially those who wound up in state run group homes like her, she wanted to fight back against those heartless, inhumane monsters. She was going to fly a jet and shoot them all to pieces from where they couldn't touch her ever again. 

But becoming a pilot in the air force required good grades in STEM fields, passing a battery of entrance exams and demonstrating a capacity for higher learning. The teachers at the home were pleased by her apparent scholarly drive and she applied herself diligently in between air raid sirens and unpredictable moves to new locations. It had been her height that almost brought her plans to a grinding halt when she discovered she was two centimeters short of the leg length requirement but someone was looking out for her because she hit another growth spurt at age fifteen. 

The government was perfectly happy to unload her to the Royal Air Force the day she turned sixteen and the latter was pleased to gain another warm body to help replace the thousands that had dropped like flies during the Omnic Crisis. She made it through officer and specialist training with a cohort of other teens, all of them knowing the mortality stats for the air force, none of them caring. The risks on the ground as civilians were barely less. When she turned eighteen, she was sent to Perth for her foundation tour, protection of the United Kingdom being reserved for more experienced and capable officers — the ones who had survived their first tours. 

Four months in, she was co-piloting with her squadron leader, a wing of fighters escorting another of bombers, when communications were jammed and omnics descended from heavy cloud cover. She remembered a blinding flash of plasma followed by the stench of burnt flesh filling the cockpit, then hailing her commanding officer repeatedly for orders. But the woman was dead, a tight beam plasma round sent tidily through her skull, and all hell was breaking loose around their shuddering and jostled craft. 

Lena took control of the fighter reflexively, trying twice to inform the next ranked Flight Lieutenant to take command, but the channel was flooded with static and half the visuals on the blink. She inverted the polarized transparent aluminum windshield to look with her own two eyes...into a field of smoke and chaos illuminated by flashes of green and bursts of orange. A bomber went down as she watched and as the sheer number of airborne hostiles registered, she realized they all had two basic options: fight until the death or fall back and preserve life. They needed backup to stand any chance of retreat, which required communication, which required a pilot capable of escaping the melee long enough to send a message to base command. 

With a deep breath through her respirator, Lena swung her craft out, darting between combatants. Only firing enough to clear a path, she ignored segments of her fighter's diagram lighting up yellow as it took minor damage. A part of her was convinced she would go up in a fireball — a member of the eighty-seven percent pilot fatality rate — but fear never truly touched her when she was in combat. It was a thing that happened before and after, never during the present. When the static lifted, she messaged base: ambush, overwhelming force, blue leader down, retreat, require support, do you copy? 

For one split second there was terror when she glanced back toward the battle and saw two fighters careening after her and understood what had happened. Without communications, all that they knew was that Blue One was taking initiative and seemed to be retreating. 

Lena cut off base command's acknowledgment and banked around, accelerating hard back toward the battle. Maybe they would all die, but her wing's job was the escort the heavily laden bombers, not run like jackasses. Either base understood the gravity of the situation and support would arrive quickly enough for some of them to make it out...or it wouldn't. But, oh God, this wasn't her job. She was a wet nosed Flying Officer not– 

Lena closed her eyes tightly over the stew in the present, astonished that the memory could be so visceral. She had barely qualified as an adult back then and certainly not as a leader. 

She recalled the bomber pilot that realized he couldn't outrun the massive omnic warship, how he banked around and made as if to ram. At the last moment, he pitched upward over the airship and dropped his payload. The explosion had been so intense that Lena's windscreen automatically blacked out as her fighter tilted and spun temporarily out of control. 

Nevertheless, she oversaw the strategic retreat until support arrived time for most of both squads to survive, her hands rigid on the rear yoke. None of this was ever shown in the recruitment vids or the news reports, never from within, her own panicked gasps echoing inside her helmet. 

Once she got out of medical, Lena was chewed out soundly for violating chain of command, then put on custodial detail. She had been convinced her career was over before it had begun, despite knowing that there hadn't been time to debate over who had been available to take command versus who was already dead. A week into her menial punishment, she was summoned back to the Wing Commander's office where her new Squadron Leader awarded her a promotion to Flight Lieutenant, with a stern warning not to violate COC again. 

While first in her batch of recruits to be blooded and ranked, her peers eventually caught up in between combat and tense periods of waiting, during which she pursued her degree in Aerospace Engineering. Unlike most of her cohort, she demonstrated a seemingly preternatural piloting ability and accrued both commendations, awards and public favor until the central Omnium went up in a mushroom cloud. Shortly afterward, the Australian Government politely informed the United Kingdom that it had the omnics under control and did not require further assistance. The fallout zone begged to differ as rural areas fell into primitive chaos, but the UK began pulling out its forces as requested. 

Lena had watched her peers cheer one by one as they were handed their transport papers, most for reassignment, a small percentage for short leave at home. She watched them shipping out, increasingly uneasy behind her photogenic smile and practiced charm, as her orders did not come. Week after week, she and the airmen under her command shared wary looks and foreboding anticipation. She was working up the courage to beard the Wing Commander when she was summoned to appear at 0700 in full dress uniform at Hangar 7. 

She arrived in the last occupied hanger, half empty and quiet of its usual scurrying technicians, to discover her airmen and ground crew already waiting. Most were soldiers that had been serving her for over two years, though there were a few unfamiliar faces and a number of missing ones. Further back was the Wing Commander, grinning ominously, before he apologized for the delay but that they had been coordinating with a third party. Then he promoted her to Squadron Leader so that she could serve as an R.A.F. liaison officer to the United Nation. 

Lena had expected some minor medal, had hoped to be assigned within her homeland, but not a lifetime career position at age twenty-two. It was one thing to advance to her own craft rapidly during wartime but she was barely through her first tour. She had assumed she would have another two years to decide if she wanted to make the military her career but didn't really fancy taking orders until she was sixty. 

Despite understanding how foolish it was to protest a promotion, she stepped in close and murmured in question, "Respectfully, sir, there must be more qualified senior off–" 

She heard the smile in his warm voice, saw his chest contract in a brief huff of amusement, as he answered the top of her head, "But none the cameras love half as much." 

A tiny twitch of his index finger had her stepping back to attention, saluting and accepting the promotion as her stomach dropped to the concrete. 

Then her heart sped up as she automatically began to analyze the virtual field. A liaison to the U.N.? In this time and age, given her junior position, and the faint smile tugging at her commander's lips, that had to mean the Overwatch Taskforce. Not being any sort of central government, the U.N. had no military of its own; rather, each participating nation contributed a portion of their military forces. Most were detailed as peacekeeping officers throughout the world, but a small percentage went into Overwatch. The Majority of those personnel were administrative and support, distributed to various Watchpoints, but a tiny portion were the field specialists themselves, what the average citizen though of when they heard: Overwatch. Liaison officers were about evenly divided between admin and specialists, but given that she barely knew any more than mandatory about the former... 

"No fuckin' way," she whispered. 

The Wing Commander cleared his throat reprovingly. 

Lena jerked back to attention as the hanger overheads glared to life with audible bursts of power, revealing the Overwatch branded troop carrier. 

A tall, blond man was stepping down the gangplank, followed by a lumbering behemoth that proved to be a gorilla in body armor. That would be Strike Commander James "Jack" Morrison and Senior Technician Winston, a de facto diplomat from the fallen Horizon Lunar Space Colony. 

Her gaze pinged between them, a mad desire to be a field agent warring with the more pragmatic likelihood that she would be involved in air support at one of the Watchpoints. She tried to keep the welling disappointment — completely unreasonable given her vast promotion — off her face but knew she probably wasn't succeeding. She had always been highly emotive. 

"Welcome to the team," Commander Morrison said, greeting her with a gleaming smile and American accent. "I hear you're the best combat pilot the United Kingdom has to offer." 

She stammered, feeling her face flush over the gaffe, taken aback by the claim. The best? Then she mentally kicked herself; she had to be if she was being assigned to them. Or, at least, the best with a complimentary screen presence. Recovering with an involuntary smirk, she saluted crisply, "At your service, sir!" 

"Excellent, because my colleague here, Winston, is designing an experimental flight craft he'll need tested and deployed." 

After the briefing with her new commander, she returned to her quarters in a state of shock. But then here crew were there, congratulating her and Sergeant McRae revealed half a bottle of scotch whiskey she had been hoarding. Lena had gotten tipsy by the time Corporal Narang minced into sight, glammed up like a bar girl and doing their very best impression of a star-struck local eager to brag that they had shagged the fearless Tracer. She was laughing when the rangy noncom sat in her lap, whispering very earnestly into her ear that they had volunteered to be her sacrificial victim. Then they licked her ear and Lena had keeled over, shrieking at the dumb jock, until they both wound up in a heap on the floor. 

She had taken care of the skies and her airmen had taken care of her. 

There, at the table, Lena watched as the spork bent into a tight arch and wondered how it could be that she was a mere twenty-six when she felt fifty. She wished the utensil would break. That might provide her with some weak, plastic shiv and she could jam it straight through her own orbital cavity. It curved and her hand shook as she tried to ease her grip. Self-control and a cool head under the most extreme pressures were vital traits for a good combat pilot and she no longer had and of those. Some stranger addressed her by a former rank and all she wanted to put out her own eye with a piece of dull plastic. 

Because Overwatch had been brilliant, the best time of her life as the war wound to a close and she tested experimental aircraft against the growing threat of Talon. But then there was the Slipstream accident and the R.A.F. listed her as MIA, until reports began to filter in about a new Talon agent called Tracer and the genetic identifiers matched. Her code was changed briefly to POW, then more decisively to AWOL when her contract with Talon mysteriously surfaced. Finally, the R.A.F. convened a board of inquiry and tried her in absentia for a laundry list of crimes, including treason, before stripping her of rank and dismissing her with dishonor. 

The next time she encountered her former team mates on the field, they were shooting to kill, yet even deep under the thrall of combat meds, she hadn't been able to to do the same. 

Despite two years into this mockery of life, she wanted to scream duress, medically incapacitated, prisoner of war but none of those technicalities would undo the murders she had committed under the guise of anti-terrorist operations. The facts were: that she could not prove her psychological state when she first left the Slipstream; Talon had made no declaration of war; and her contract invalidated duress. No one was going to help her and she was a non-entity. 

One of inquiry board officers had been at the party last night. 

Lena slapped the shitty little spork onto the table and snarled. "You know damn well I'm not an officer, you cocksucker. If you're looking for an excuse to play with your new toys when no one's looking, you don't need one." She bared the tips of her teeth at Trevor again, looking him in the eyes. "Get on with it, _Captain_ , because I want to eat my breakfast quick enough that I stand a chance of keeping it down while I spend the entire day being tortured." 

He tipped his head back in gradual increments, studying her, but his hands remained still. "You're completely aware of..." he whispered. 

"Yes," she agreed grimly. "Did they tell you I'd gone simple?" 

"I wasn't attempting to provoke you," he placated. "But I'd been given the impression that you were more mentally compromised than you appear to be. Long term use of combat meds, even taking into account modern modifications, invariably result in neural degeneration." 

She gaped at him for implying that he hadn't noticed her emotional instability. "I _am_ compromised and it's your fuckin' job," she ground out. "This is the life you've chosen for whatever shitty, desperate reason that I don't want to know, like half the crew here. The faster you realize it, the faster we'll get on." She pointed at his wrist. "So hit me with that or piss off." 

Lena braced automatically when he folded his hands together in front of his mouth, but Trevor merely rubbed the back of his thumb back and forth across his lips as he gazed at the table top. "What happened with Markovic?" 

"He disabled the recording equipment in a meeting room, locked us in and ordered me to my knees," Lena told him, picking up the spork to shovel stew into her mouth and bit down savagely on a cube of beef. 

If Trevor were a capable officer, then he would have reviewed his assigned subject. He knew the case scenario but he was military shrink and wanted to get all touchy-feely, see into her head, then use whatever he learned to wind her up later. No matter what he thought now, he would eventually start zapping her, start watching the surveillance footage for his own amusement, lay bets on how and what with the others, slipping with finality into the jailor's mindset. 

They all did and it was a wonder that it had taken two years for one of the bully boys to decide it was acceptable to rape her despite Talon's company policy on sexual harassment and assault of personnel. Then again, she had been caught by a moment of uncertainty while on her knees, wondering if she counted as a person anymore. Perhaps sexual assault was also considered an acceptable form of aggravation to be used against the resident super soldier. 

"I am aware that you beat him to death," Trevor said gravely, "and briefed on company policies. Doctor Azarkeyvan himself emphasized that we are forbidden from physically assaulting you in any way as the risk of triggering a combat response is too great." 

She licked some broth before it could run down her chin, smiling a tiny bit in remembered satisfaction, but it was forced. She recalled a time when she grinned freely and easily but all that happiness had drained away like blood from an invisible wound. Her expression slipped back into nothing. 

Whatever reluctance she had to defend herself from Markovic had been swept away by a flood of panic when he undid his fly. She had launched herself straight forward from the ground like a sprinter off blocks in a clumsy, graceless attack. When he planted a finger on his actuator, she began screaming, until the pressure on her chest was too grinding to waste air on sound, but she never stopped punching him as her implants flooded her with hormones and painkillers. 

There had been a split second, as she broke the fingers of his hand, forcing the electrical shocks to stop, that she saw her own manic grin reflected back in his dilated pupils. When she heard his terrified gasps in between her frothing wheezes. 

The cessation of his vitals brought a security team running and they found her sprawled out beside Markovic, glued to the floor in a pool of his blood. Her artificial lungs were working in conjunction with the pacemaker, applying compression to her arrested heart with each automated inhalation. There was no pain but she felt the entire weight of Talon's base planted firmly on her chest, crushing her like a walnut. When she woke in Azarkeyvan's laboratory, she was well again, though her hands, fingers and wrists were tender. When he saw her prod at the bones and flesh in curiosity, the doctor had perfunctorily informed Lena that she had broken multiple bones. 

She was never punished for that incident but it was how she learned that she could enter combat mode within the base, with sufficient provocation. Reaper himself grudgingly explained that it was meant to ensure that she could do her job if Talon were infiltrated by hostile parties. Sensible, but exploitable, not that she could force the response. It required fear, the sincere belief that her well-being was being genuinely threatened. 

Trevor was right; the contract she had signed rendered her less than a person and mere pragmatism limited her captors. 

Lena pressed the crusty portion of her bread into the stew to soak up some of the broth. 

"I understand," Trevor said, interrupting her reverie. 

She jerked her gaze up, eyes narrowed at his preoccupied expression. This handler would be dangerous. With his psychology training, he might not fall into the predictable jailor mindset. If he maintained this feigned kindness, it would be too easy to slip into trusting him, to forget that he voluntarily chose to work for Talon and was not her friend. 

"What would you prefer I call you?" he asked. 

"Tracer." 

He nodded once. "Very well, Tracer, I want you to know that I will never cause you unwarranted harm. I have been assigned to this team because your commander has noticed a steady increase in violent outbursts that correlate strongly with unreported by recorded harassment. I know you have no reason to trust me but my role is to mitigate those incidents as the doctor believes you are fundamentally cooperative." 

Lena curled her lip. Trevor would be playing good cop. "Yeah? You understand that my role here is to have scheduled psychotic breaks, right?" Her question being rhetorical, she snorted quietly, shaking her head and resumed eating. Talon wanted it both ways and she didn't need psyche training to know they were playing with fire, a tool with a use-by date that it seemed they were trying to extend. She wished them bloody fucking luck. She wished she hadn't been part of the thirteen percent. 

Understanding that he had been dismissed, Trevor rose and moved away to a far table. 

She let out a controlled sigh of relief, unwillingly shifting her attention to a news report that had been playing on the community screen the entire time. With morbid interest, she activated her comm chip to listen to the reporter, superimposed over the image of a burning building flanked by two profile shots of a man and an omnic 

Talon's propaganda machine was in full swing, the philanthropist being described as a terrorist backer, funding illicit Overwatch activity. His omnic guest was now an agitator rather than peaceful protester. The blind woman and her dog were never mentioned, nor the guards. There was a bit of censure over the property damage followed by acknowledgment of Talon's generous donation to assist in recovery and repair. The city thanked Talon for rooting out such insidious conspirators. 

Lena cut off the feed. 

She had watched from the inside as Talon went from being a splinter terrorist group within Blackwatch to an accepted political entity with public backers. She listened to them confirm Overwatch's corruption and unaccountability and Talon so deeply regretted their unwitting part in betraying the public's good faith. To that end, they were helping government's around the world hunt down not only the remaining vigilantes, but their many hidden sponsors and associates. Yes, Talon would do whatever was necessary to free the world of those roach-like terrorists and their insane obsessions. 

It was all so very noble but she doubted that becoming a psychopathic junkie was what her Wing Commander had meant when he teasingly advised her to, "Knock'em dead." 

Lena picked up her empty bowl and jammed it into the returns slot, wiping her hands right on the dark gray fatigues she wore. They would be filthy enough in a short while that it made no difference. She heard Trevor push away from his table as she headed toward the door and resisted the urge to lope just to inconvenience him. 

"Was she to your liking?" he asked congenially. 

"So much for your moral high ground," she scoffed. "I'm sure Fuhrmann would be happy to show you the vid." 

"I would prefer not to watch. It's only that I had little time to observe you last night and meager reference material." 

She stifled a hiss of surprise but missed a breath, recalling the seemingly random comment about how he had begun his duties the previous night. Now that they were both upright, she sized him up peripherally, trying to place him. 

He made a noise of negation. "I was with the floor security team." 

Lena paced him easily despite his greater height. His face had been covered by a standard issue Talon helmet and visor. Even if she had noticed a new team member, she would have tuned him out in favor of the party guests. She mentally raised her estimate of his threat level because it seemed that Reaper might have employed a different breed of psychologist this round. 

"I was asking in order to better gauge your preferences," he clarified, when she remained silent. 

"I'm sure you'll have them figured within the next few months." 

"It doesn't need to be that long," he countered mildly. 

She worked her jaw, then sighed. "I'm not trying to give you a hard time, new guy, but Reaper's already tried this strategy with me. I get it; you're the candy man. Give it a rest." 

"Our employer tried this strategy before you fully understood your position here," he said bluntly. "Doctor Azarkeyvan is not longer able to prevent the brain damage that will accumulate with continued use of the combat medication. As I see it, your choices a simple: continue to defy your contracted duties and be drugged into compliance, or cooperate." 

Lena missed a stride, catching a toe on the concrete and stumbling as it friction-bound. Her expression tightened into a grimace, simmering fear and rage leaving her unable to respond as she regained her stride. 

"You're no longer with the Force," he reminded her. "They absolved you of any obligation to resist and escape. Begin cooperating and I'll argue that your medication be vastly reduced. Show commitment and it might be suspended entirely. An intact mind is a valuable commodity." 

She had told him the truth about Reaper trying this strategy in the begriming but Trevor had been as well when he pointed out that time had established the strength of Talon's bond. Without allies, her only escapes were death and the Slipstream, but Talon's leash could snap back onto her collar in the latter. The doctor demonstrated that every time he felt she needed to be put in time out. 

She fisted her hands when she felt them begin to tremble. Her life was not her own. Her body was not her own. Her brain was not her own. Even if they stopped drugging her out of her mind... She averted her gaze without breaking her pace. 

"If you make a sincere effort during training today, I'll ensure you get a drink." 

Despite her best effort, her eyes flicked toward Trevor in silent question. 

"One alcoholic beverage of your choice," he confirmed. 

Lena grit her teeth, wondering if choosing to murder willingly would actually protect her sanity. The way she saw it, she would lose her mind either way but, God, her hands itched and she wanted a drink. 

* * *

Lena sat as ordered, stayed as ordered, and stared vacantly at the bulkhead of the vibrating aircraft. Her knee bounced restlessly and her fingers drummed aimlessly on her armored thighs, as still as she was able as her adrenaline climbed. The handler perpendicular to her stirred infinitesimally and she flinched in the woman's direction. 

Alberda tipped her head, listening to a remote communication, then motioned casually. "Prepare for drop." 

Lena grunted and jerked to her feet, rocking slightly from excessive force before falling back to rest on her heels as the craft banked leeward. She felt the shift in gravity that indicated descent before the hatch popped open, sucking out pressurized air with a roar of wind. 

A tiny flicker of motion startled her into hissing at Alberda, but a wrist flipped up to bare an actuator had Lena turning away in submission. She glanced back at the dark outlines of expensive single family homes, windows blazing with wasteful energy despite the lean times for everyone else. None of that mattered as she felt her cogent awareness slipping away the more her jittery excitement increased along with her heart-rate. She knew this, dreaded this, loathed what was about to... 

Tracer rolled onto the tips of her feet, almost prancing in anticipation, teeth bared in a facsimile of a smile. She could run and fly soon, laugh as she played to her maddened heart's content in wrathful pleasure. Soon. Her fingers twitched to slide the pistols into her hands but it wasn't allowed in the aircraft. It would mean pain. She didn't want pain. 

"Wait," Alberda reminded her firmly, but without hostility. 

Tracer paused. No threat. She was no threat. All was well. 

From the communicator built into her goggles, Reaper commanded, "Tracer, engage at will." 

Tracer flung herself out of the bay, free-falling with a grin fixed on her face before blinking toward a convenient parapet. Allowing her feet to absorb the shock of landing, she rebounded over the side of the building and took her bearings. 

In the distance, she could hear the distracting Talon raid on a far less important government facility that had the temerity to tacitly support Overwatch. The news feeds would all be fixated on that, everyone's head turned the wrong direction. 

Someone in the house was playing music, fast with a good beat. Tracer danced as she ran, flipping in and out of a jog to throw a few steps, spin or slide with the tune, humming to herself. When was the last tim she had been to a club, flirted until she made some pretty girl laugh despite herself? 

Oh, there was a security guard. 

Tracer slid sideways in a final dance move, feet tearing gouges through the soft, dew-damp grass. "Hiya!" she chirped in greeting, wriggling her fingers at him. 

The man gaped, trapping in perplexed shock over discovering a dancing Talon assassin on the back lawn. 

"Bye!" she added with a giggle, gunning him down with a short burst of pulse rounds. "A one and two," she continued to herself. 

There was the second guard, right on schedule, accompanied by a dog. 

"Point five," she amended, shooting the guard, before waiting, wincing in pain as it barked. 

Once the dog rushed her, it went down too. There, that was good, right? Blinking forward to gain momentum, she leapt up onto the roof and trotted to the other side. Peering over the gutters, she popped off two more guards before the alarm was fully raised. 

"Welp," she said to herself with a shrug, before tossing a pulse bomb over her shoulder where it bounced on the shingles, "time to slide to the right..." She launched herself through the resulting hole in the roof, sticking the landing easily, arms stretched out to either side. 

The fifth guard was a bit too close when she opened fire and a back-spray of blood and bits hit her across the face, smearing her goggles. Laughing, she blinked and slid on her knees across the balcony hall. A bullet zinged off part of her harness, spinning her a bit, and she bounced up. 

"That was plain rude, it was!" she chided airily, running across the adjacent wall to hurl herself around the corner. 

A hail of bullet hit the floor in a tidy line where a normal person would have been. 

Tracer flipped as she landed on her assailant's back, grabbing the woman's midriff to plaster her against the eye of the accelerator. "Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times!" 

She blinked and half of the woman came with her, alive and screaming until the shock and massive blood loss returned the room to silence. 

"Now, what did I say about your arms and legs?" Tracer asked rhetorically. 

Squelching across the wet carpet, she found a box of tissues and wiped the blood off of her goggles. Raising one pistol, she fired a burst without looking, at whomever opened the door, and heard a satisfying thump. 

A woman began to scream hysterically and Tracer lurched at the piercing noise. Flinging herself toward the door, she hooked it open the rest of the way with one foot, guns at the ready. 

There was the screeching harpy, sobbing as she cradled a small body. 

"Shut your ruddy gob!" Tracer shouted over the din and laid a burst of fire into the woman. "Christ on a fucking stick, could people not scream? Like goddamn howler monkeys." When the noise didn't promptly stop, she realized sheepishly that it was her own keen of pain. She set her jaw, breathing through clenched teeth until she quieted. 

"Najwa?" a man's quavering voice called out. "Zahida? Did you find her?" When he received no response, he sobbed, before begging, "Please. I know- Please don't hurt them. Please, they're completely innocent. Please," he fell off with a whisper. 

Tracer hooked the woman's body with her foot and rolled it out into the hallway. "Is this Najwa or Zahida? I mean, outta curiosity. The second one, right?" 

When the man answered her with a low moan followed by sobs, she poked her head through the doorway. "Oi, I'm talking to you. You deaf, you dumb cunt?" 

Having spotted him, crawling toward the woman's body, she shot off both his ears and laughed at her own joke as he fell over, clutching the sides of his head. "Made y'look!" 

She idly clipped him a few more times as she strolled over, until he balled up in a fetal position. Stopping in a crouch, she jabbed him with the snout of a pistol until he was jammed against the wall staring at her with stricken eyes. Final target and her mission objective — to eliminate all living persons with the target area — would be complete. 

"Oop, almost forgot!" She giggled, tapping the alloy headband that served as minimal armor. "Memory problems, don't y'know?" Waggling her pistols, she dashed downstairs into the kitchen and returned a couple minutes later with a butter knife and small, ugly, statue of an elephant. 

She crouched back down where Mu'tamid Kader had managed to crawl, closer to his wife and daughter. "You know who I am?" 

He swallowed laboriously, dilated eyes darting to her lips, down to her accelerator insignia, up to her eyes and back again. He moaned with every convulsive exhalation, a trail of spittle trickling down his chin. 

"Right," she said, wrinkling her nose at the smell of urine and bile, "cat got your ears. Well, Talon sends their regards! Now, I need you to hold real still for me." 

Pulling out a slip of cloth from a slim utility pouch, she pressed it against his head with the blunt tip of the butter knife. In his pain addled shock, he made no effort to stop the swing of the statue against the handle of the knife, and she drove it partway into his skull. The drywall spider-webbed as his head hit the wall and she jammed a foot against his throat to hold him steady as thrashed, grabbing frantically at her leg and shoving. A few more strikes finished the job, the knife sinking abruptly halfway to the handle when bone gave way to gelatinous brain. 

His face was frozen in a rictus of horror and she stared at one vacant eye, visible behind the Talon logo, allowing the spattered statue to slip from her fingers to the carpet with a muted thump. Looking away, she wiped her gloves on his pastel green shirt so that her grip on her pistols wouldn't be slippery. She backed away, then turned so she couldn't see his maimed body. But that brought Zahida's crumpled form into view, patterned peach dress tented around her, ruined by blotches of dark red. 

Something whimpered from Zahida's direction. 

Tracer's arms snapped up reflexively but she held her fire. The family had no pets; she knew what it had to be. Step by step, she returned to the pair and met the dark, terrified eyes of Najwa. 

The girl was bleeding and curled against her mother, hiding under a splayed arm with its broad, flowing sleeve glued over her. She shrank into herself, gaze fixed on the pistol barrels aimed at her face, whimpering again in pain. 

Tracer withdrew her weapons, raised them, and repeated the process several times. All targets were to be eliminated. 

Najwa squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face against her mother's chest, waiting. 

Tracer's arms and legs were shaking slightly from adrenaline overload. She couldn't stay here. 

Stumbling as she turned away, Tracer vaulted the banister and dropped to the main floor and went, going back to the kitchen. There were no bodies there and she might find some forbidden treats, sugar to off-set the shakes. Flitting about, she found some crisps, peanut butter, spotty bananas, souvenir magnets from numerous countries holding up a crayon drawing, a family calender, a few bottles of liquor and some mint chocolate chip ice cream. 

She was drinking from a bottle of scotch and licking ice cream off a serving spoon when the glass in her hand exploded, followed by the report of a high powered rifle. She looked down to see amber liquid full of glass shards polluting her dessert. Baring her teeth wider, she let out several expletives and pivoted to flip off the distant sniper through shattered window. 

Something punched her hard on the thigh, flinging that leg out from under her so that she sprawled on the fancy stone tiles. They were actually quite pretty, an elaborate, geometric mosaic that must have cost a fortune to set by hand. She quirked her eyebrows at the forest of dust bunnies under their refrigerator, then recalled. 

Tracer flung a proximity charge at the damaged window as the initial shot now missed, thundered through the house. With a fierce grin, she hurled herself through the resulting, smoking hole and accelerated to full speed, careful to weave as she approached her target's rough position. Blinking clear across a shipping canal, soles barely skimming the surface of the water, throwing up a contrail, she felt a second bullet whip past her ear. She triangulated. 

Landing on a wide commercial tarmac surrounded by factory warehouses, she ducked behind a stack of shipping containers, their scuffed primary colors dulled to grays and blues by evening. She took a few moments in the lingering day's heat, not to catch her breath, but to allow the refrigeration units of her combat armor to ease down her body temperature. Sweat pooled behind the edges of her goggles, leaving behind a damp chafe. 

"Yo! Night-light!" D.Va's voice jeered before her meka rounded the corner, her barrage of projectile fire sending Tracer dashing back onto the open tarmac. "Run bitch, run!" 

Okay, so Amélie had brought reinforcements. That was new. Tracer recalled as she sighted D.Va, spotted the twin lines of bullets racing straight toward her. But as she did, the ground exploded around her and she staggered back, looking up from beside the original crate. 

Pharah was an inky black patch against a field of stars until the moonlight glinted off he armor. Had she been there all along, waiting for the recall? Three? And where was Lacroix? 

Tracer blinked down between the crates and straight into McCree's revolver, gasping as the man silently emerged from his waiting position. Twisting backward, she recalled again with phantom pain all along her face, neck and chest and her harness beeped in warning as she stumbled over the bombed out tarmac. She recalled and came face to face with Mercy's handgun, the glow of her cadecus temporarily blinding her. She tarted to recall again, remembered McCree and the others' positions and froze. Though gifted with a mind that operated on split-second trajectories, there were only so many possible directions within the recursive time given. 

Her prosthetics hooked and caught on pieces of rubble and she cursed, seeing the Overwatch agents circling in her peripheral vision. 

Tracer spread her pistols, yanking her leg free, but before she could aim her attention was caught by a blinking, red reflection in the shipping container next to her. Swinging her head around, she expected to see the broken line of a laser sight passing through the smoke and dust whirling around her. 

The electromagnetic pulse burst was so strong she fell weakly into a fetal position. Functioning on an entirely different quantum level, her anchor was unaffected, but all the electrical and digital components of her accelerator harness and combat armor failed. Her pistols went dark, locking in position, becoming unwieldy clubs glued to her forearms. 

She pushed up onto her hands and knees, too swamped by rage to care that she was surrounded, and tried to charge forward. She collapsed onto her forearms, then sank with a hand pressed to her chest as everything constricted with arrhythmia. Her pacemaker was offline. Nothing hurt but she struggled to breath, spitting out a mouthful of foamy saliva and coughing. She pushed up again, more carefully. 

A bullet impacted one shoulder mount and she reeled back to the ground, the rear of her harness clanking loudly against a chunk of asphalt. That arm collapsed under her, refusing to lift, though she could move it weakly. Seconds later, her skin felt wet. Using the other hand, she pulled herself partially into a sitting position, staring blankly in the direction of the distant gunshot. It was entirely the wrong angle. Surely there hadn't been enough time for Amélie to move so far from her initial position and set up properly for another try. 

When she attempted to stand yet again, a second bullet collided with her side, knocking the breath out of her as she hit the ground on her injured side. Well, that was both sides now and her mind gradually circled in on the obvious fact that there were two snipers. Gathering her knees to rise, she reconsidered, feeling bones grate under the ablated armor. Her eyes darted between the agents, a sensation almost like fear ghosting through her. 

Tracer held absolutely still as a shimmering dome of energy enveloped her position, though nothing else happened. She licked salt from her lips, taking rapid, shallow breaths, all she could manage. 

"On your knees, girl," an unfamiliar voice ordered, though it tickled faintly at her dim memory. 

She shuffled up as ordered, hunching forward to balance the wounded arm on her thigh, but putting the other hand behind her head in surrender. Death was the last thing she could afford. 

Something whistled through the air and impaled the hand on her knee. 

Tracer looked down at it, puzzled, but there was still no pain. It would come later, once her cocktail wore off. She blinked at the dart, smiling in bemusement at the empty chamber. Uncertainly, but with growing irritation, she tried to dislodge the implement by pushing against the protruding tip of the needle on her knee, but it was too long. 

"Drop your weapons," ordered the same voice. 

"Fucking can't, you ruddy bint," Tracer slurred. 

Her vision swam for a few seconds and she swayed, but shook it off as her pulse slowed, some of the constriction in her chest easing. Far more significant, she felt calm, with a greater sense of self. She spat out another mouthful of putrid foam, congestion from her lungs. Nothing was quite so loud or bright anymore and she realized that her former team mates were talking to each other furiously. 

Lena looked around more alertly, lips parted to breath but not longer grinning involuntarily. She wondered how much time she had as herself and with all her communication equipment offline. 

"Well, shit," grumbled McCree, "she's still up. Though you said your kit could take down an elephant." 

"But not going anywhere," rumbled Winston, bounding over on his knuckles until he was right outside the dome perimeter. "Look at the way she's breathing," he said, motioning at someone with his chin. "Is that the sedative?" 

"No," the unknown woman's voice answered with consideration. "Something's wrong with her." 

"Shit-load's wrong with her," quipped D.Va from within her cockpit. 

"Tell me something I don't know," Lena wheezed. "It's my he...h..." She tried to say it, to explain, but the words froze in the back of her mind as always. The subliminal conditioning wouldn't allow her to say it. It would be a tactical disadvantage. 

A woman draped in a blue cloak finally emerged into Lena's field of vision. "It's her heart. Happens to all the dope-sol's eventually." 

Lena bowed her head in futility, accepting the partially correct answer, then looked back up to study the woman. From the distance, in the darkness, she couldn't place the dark skin but a long, white braid emerging from the shayla suggested the woman's age. The voice was even more familiar up close, and without the warping influence of the combat meds. She tried to identify her by her rifle, an enormous weapon nearly the same length as the woman's body, but it didn't ring any bells. 

The woman did a visual check of the assembled group, then gave Winston a nod. 

He tapped a control on his gauntlet and the small energy dome dissipated as a large one sealed in the entire group. Coming forward as the others trained weapons on Lena, he took her raised arm and tore free the pistol from its housing in a squeal of metal and carbon alloys. 

When he picked up the injured arm, Lena doubled over with a keen as pain lanced through her shoulder. The movement wrenched her cracked ribs and her mouth worked but no sound came out. Until she gave a broken cry and groan, tears pooling with the sweat inside her goggles. Right now would be a good time for her chemical implants to work, but the fact that they didn't was a silver lining. She repeated that fact in her mind as stars swam in her vision. She needed to stay conscious. 

Working efficiently, after steadying her arm with his far more than human strength, Winston tore free the second pistol and yanked out the sedative dart, eyes narrowed as he observed her apparent cooperation. He paused in the midst of turning away, the dark smear across his white armor causing him to study her wounded arm and shoulder more closely. But he didn't say anything before returning to the perimeter. 

Lena craned her head shakily before maintaining eye contact with the old woman, she slowly brought her good hand around to press on her injured shoulder, trying to staunch the flow of blood exacerbated by her artificially high blood pressure. Pharah shifted forward, raising her arm canon a bit higher, moving closer to the woman in the process. 

Lena cocked her head. "Cap?" 

Ana Amari grunted in what seemed like grudging respect, but twisted her lips in distaste. "Well," she said after a measure, "I was hoping she was wrong but it looks like the brain's still there." 

"I'm not chipped and...you're not dead." The corner of her mouth twitched. 

"Nope," Ana agreed. "Got better. I'm a healer, you daft girl. You should've known to double-tap me." 

"Cap," Lena retorted quietly, the twitch having become the ghost of a chronic smirk, "I did know." 

Ana raised her chin, shifting the weight of the rifle she cradled in her elbow. Her jaw worked before she looked off into the darkness and canted her head, as if in acknowledgment. 

"Well," McCree drawled, "if you're not chipped then that means y'got a motive for working with those bastards. See," he sauntered along the edge, "a program makes you do what your commanders want but them drugs only turn a person into an animal. And an animal follows its instincts and impulses so why, exactly," he asked, facing Ana, "aren't we putting her down? 'Cause she obviously wants to be doin' what she's doin'." 

Ana's dark cloak wafted in the ocean breeze as she turned to face McCree. "Why are you asking me?" She flicked her free hand toward Lena. "She's right there and speaking for herself, from the sound of it." 

He crouched, the leather of his exorbitantly expensive boots creaking from the sharp bend. "Go on then, bitty," he prompted Lena. "Why you working for Talon 'stead of doin' the noble thing?" He scraped a thumb through his swept, auburn beard as if in thought. "Thought you pledged yourself to king an' country." 

His direct interrogation activated her conditioning so strongly that it was impossible for her to answer the question with anything remotely direct or factual. Grimly, she recalled all the times she had tried to hint at it to Amélie during a playful skirmish, but even jokes had choked in her throat. 

His gaze narrowed at her silence, likely assuming willing betrayal, lumping her in with Reyes as a traitor to everyone. 

"I haven't broken my oaths," she answered, saying each word cautiously, one by one and sucking he breath in with elation when they all came out. 

"Is that fuckin' so?" he drawled sarcastically. 

"Absolutely," she confirmed, holding his gaze even though she couldn't pinpoint his eyes, shadowed by the brim of his stetson. But they didn't have time to waste on this posturing, so she returned her attention to Ana. "Where's Amélie?" 

"Here," came an even contralto, preceding the woman in question. 

Finally, there she was: Amélie; a former adjutant and premier class sniper in the French infantry during the war; the hero of Lyon who brought down an entire omnic troop carrier; a former Blackwatch agent; and surviving half of the Lacroix power couple, once tasked with neutralizing the newly emerged terrorist group known as Talon. She was a legend, and gorgeous as ever. 

Lena's limited attention span narrowed to focus on that one woman. She ran her gaze from Amélie's face, shielded by a hard-light visor, to the lapels of her violet and lavender jacket, which concealed form-fitting light armor. Despite the inherent danger, Lena's eyes settled it on the sway of her hips as she approached with a dancer's grace. 

She grinned, not quite sedated enough to resist the inappropriate response. "Hello, luv." 

Amélie said nothing, crouching on her heels, pointing the contracted version of her rifle at the unlit Talon logo of the accelerator harness, which hung by a single metal arm wrapped around Lena's waist. Though her index finger hovered against the side of her trigger, ready to slide over and give the slightest pull, her warm amber gaze searched for signs of cognizance. With her free hand, she pinched the frame of the red goggles and wriggled it up onto Lena's forehead. 

"Don't step on the grate," Lena said to Amélie, blinking a few times because a breeze blew steadily from the coast, dry air prickling at the sweat on her face as that, mixed with tears, dribbled down her cheeks and off her chin. "You can't step on the grate." 

"Pardon?" 

"The big metal grate, by the brick wall." Lena struggled to recall, grasping at fragmented memories of what might be from her previous Time-Out sessions in the Slipstream. "And the funny little taxi on the corner." She giggled. "It looked like a toy car, or from long ago." She peered back into Amélie's eyes, aware of D.Va making a corkscrew motion by her own ear, from inside her M.E.K.A. "Don't step on the grate. You can't–" 

"Yes, I understand," Amélie said. "I will not step on the grate. Can you tell me when I must not step on the grate?" 

Lena struggled to remember, but there was an ancient village full of people with swords, another place full of warring omnics and so many corpses in different uniforms. There was a massive spaceship squatting on a launch pad the size of the Vatican and a barren wasteland. Being in the Slipstream was like rapid-fire channel surfing and it had been some time since her last bout. She had been on good behavior since then. 

She heard something dripping to her left and lolled her head around to study the indeterminate dark drops trickling down the armor and pistol housing of her arm. She rolled her head back to face Amélie. "It's...I can't..." she squeezed her eyes against the growing dizziness. "It won't stop bleeding." 

Tracer said, squinting as her senses reeled between acute sensitivity and drunken confusion. Whatever had been in the dart was strong but the chemicals already present in her bloodstream were presenting a significant hurdle. "Not long." 

"I understand," Amélie repeated, as gently as before. "I will be careful; I promise." 

"As charming as all this crazy talk is," McCree interrupted, "we should haul ass." 

Lena took a deep breath as the world shifted into focus, something beyond right now, as the sedative from the dart finally took full effect. Fierce pain bloomed in her shoulder, pushing out a gasp, more along her ribs and the pierced hand. It was followed by a mewl, then a moan as she curled to her right to alleviate the stretch on her ribs. Her heart began to race. No, no, not yet. 

She lifted her head to find Amélie's eyes flitting over the injuries, settling on a growing pool under Lena's left shin. "Please," she whispered, recalling a time when she had been too proud to beg so readily. "Please." 

"Mercy, she is bleeding profusely. I do not believe it is clotting." 

"And?" 

Lena rolled her head toward the voice and there was Angela, arms crossed defiantly, standing beside Pharah who still had her beak-shaped visor protectively over the top of her face. 

"Mercy," Amélie repeated. "This is not like you. Didn't you also swear an oath?" 

"I make exceptions for mass-murdering fuckheads, and this is one of those rare instances in which I believe the world would be a better place with one less person in it." Angela sidled out of formation, the hand-canon she called a pistol held loosely by her side as she studied Lena with clinical detachment. "I made my objections to this plan of action clear from the beginning, Lacroix." 

"So you did." Amélie swung her unblinking gaze, amber eyes glinting faintly in the distant perimeter lights combined with the various status lights on the others' personal armors, to pin Mercy in place. "Yet I am succeeding where the rest of you have failed. Regardless of your sentiments, it is difficult to interrogate an unconscious prisoner." 

Rather than immediately comply, Mercy looked to Pharah, then her mother, Ana. Lena watched the silent conversation between what seemed to be a small family unit. Several meaningful looks were traded. 

Pharah sighed after her mother's final reproving tilt of her chin. "Amélie is right. We need her lucid and it would cost time if she loses consciousness." 

"So," McCree snapped, "we take he with us. We got her down. Take that thing off her and she's a tiny, sitting duck. Time's a-wasting, folks." 

Lena shook her head frantically, clutching at the accelerator harness. "No, no, no, no, no..." she pleaded, boring her gaze into Amélie's. "I'll-" She choked. "It'll-" She choked, then gave a feeble shout of desperate frustration. "Don't," she begged, putting as much weight as she could manage into her plea, shaking her head. 

Amélie was peering intently at her, methodically assessing Lena's tone and expression, before she tipped her head slightly to the right. Her eyes dropped to the visible gap between the harness and the blue light it had concealed. The components were not connected. 

Lena slid a hand around the remaining harness arm, gripping it protectively, and flicked her eyes in that direction. 

Amélie followed the directive, gradually narrowing her eyes. "Leave the harness be," she ordered. 

"We aren't risking that thing in our-" 

"I know," Amélie said, cutting off Ana. "But we are missing something here and Lena seems unable to explain." 

McCree snorted. "Ame, I got nothing but respect for you and we were buds back in the day. You know your shit, but that woman there is plain scared. She's like a damn turtle about to lose her shell. I don't mean it personal, but it would be best to eliminate her while we got the chance." 

"She is not a afraid," Amélie contradicted firmly, tapping the side of her temple, which was couched in protective plating. "The eyes speak the truth when words do not. Isn't that what Zenyatta teaches?" 

McCree sighed, pacing in a truncated loop, glancing at Ana for input. 

"Unfortunately, I agree with Amélie. I know a coward when I see one and..." She shook her head. "Your call Lacroix." 

"Mercy," Amélie asked again. "I wish to speak to her as long as possible before we are forced to retreat." 

With a tight-lipped frown, Mercy snapped out her asklepian, keeping the maximum possible distance as she touched it to Lena's shoulder, a shimmering golden glow lighting the night for a few seconds. 

Lena sighed in a measure of relief as some — though not all — of the pain receded. She fingered the barely healed entry wound with a sore hand, finding the site excruciatingly tender. When she shifted her arm, she felt tissues pull and twist. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she felt the telltale flutter of an arrhythmia. If only they understood the real danger in that. She coughed, hissing air through spittle and clenched teeth. 

"Be calm, cherie. Be calm," Amélie urged, barely audible over Lena's rasping breaths. "That's a good girl," she continued, palm on Lena's neck, holding her steady while monitoring her pulse, most likely. 

"I'm not a fucking dog," Lena managed to huff in between gasps. 

"I apologize," Amélie said immediately. "Please forgive the slip. It was a product of poor translation. I did not mean to imply that you were an animal, little one." 

Lena leaned into the gentle pressure against her neck, Amélie's hands warm and bare, until her nose brushed the woman's gauntlet. She could smell gunpowder, oil and lavender. 

A new, soothing voice broke in. "Might I give Lena message?" 

Lena focused on breathing, pausing to spit a mouthful of foam onto the debris and sand covered tarmac before pursing her lips. A hovering omnic had floated into view from behind a cargo container. She studied the its face plate, struck again by Zenyatta's similarity to its deceased brother, Mondatta. But the woman behind her own mask was far more interested in the voice he had just emulated, the exact pitch and intonation. 

"Oi, that was-" she began, giving Zenyatta her undivided attention. 

"I wish to apologize as well. In my effort to ingratiate myself with your masters, I too compared you to a tame animal. It was not my intention to offend." 

"Weren't offended, mate," she answered, the reassurance coming from her lips unbidden, yet true. 

She wondered how he...? She struggled to recall if this omnic had a gender preference. How had he spoofed Talon's digital security? Projections were easy to override and all omnics gave off blatantly inhuman electromagnetic signatures. For a second, she was entranced by the shimmer of energies emanating from the spheres circling his neck. Something to do with those, maybe? 

Her heart squeezed painfully and she took a deep breath, holding it, pushing through the irregularity, then gulping air to compensate. Zenyatta must have seen everything. At least one of them understood now, for as tolerant as Amélie had always been — failing to take one kill-shot after another over the course of multiple confrontations — Lena couldn't explain. Whether it was subliminal hypnosis or programmed into the same chip that gave her limited control of her harness, she could not say the simple words that would let them all understand. 

She laughed weakly, heaving from the effort, twisting her body in pain. As much as she didn't want her harness to come back online, she would give a kidney for her pacemaker to come back up. Her heart was going to overload from the adrenaline and stimulants and then...No one wanted that, least of all her. 

"Will you let us help?" Amélie asked, as reasonably as if they were sitting in a cafe with some tea and ham butties. 

"Why?" Lena wheezed out around the wretched hope that was twisting in her chest like a poisonous snake. For all that had happened, she didn't want to die, but she was a soldier and it was her duty to sacrifice so others could survive. 

Winston shifted his weight, a dark shape between garishly bright plates of aerospace armor. "Because we failed last time," he rumbled. 

"Failed?" she spat at him. "You didn't fuckin' try! You left me to rot out there, like, cheers, mates, sorry for the bad turn." She paused for several breaths. "Coulda at least made sure I was dead." 

"We tried!" he roared back, tone going from human to simian as he raised his voice. "I was looking every waking moment. I built a recall chamber and," he waved an enormous hand toward her chest, "and the prototype for that abomination. It wasn't meant to...to..." With a frustrated growl, he thumped both fists against the tarmac, wheeling away from her. 

"But we were battling on too many fronts, against politicians, bureaucrats and Blackwatch's treachery." He turned back, holding up a hand, palm up with loosely curled fingers. "They took everything and sent us packing with the PETRAS act. Do you honestly believe that Talon would allocate resources to retrieving a potentially live Overwatch agent from a hypothetical Slipstream unless the real work was already done? No surprise all our supplies and equipment wound up in their hands." 

"Including me, eh?" Lena hazarded. "Gonna knick back a piece of billion dollar equipment? Is that what this is about?" 

She would have asked more but the sudden red glow of her accelerator harness reflected from Winston's spectacles. Her heart began to beat fast and steady. Maybe in some other reality, her former comrades rescued her from Talon's clutches, but in this one, she had been serving as an executioner for almost two years. There was no coming back from that, no mercy from the court of public opinion. At best, there was the elimination of a deadly weapon. 

It needed to be done safely. 

She could feel the first tilt in perception that indicated her hormone and chemical balance was shifting back to combat mode as her internal implants regained function. Inhaling deeply, she shuddered, catching Amélie's scent along with gunpowder, ozone and stink of the ocean. She shuddered again with a frisson of excitement and burning energy and her attention fell to Amélie's lips, so tantalizingly close. Lust, and no reason not to pursue it. Not anymore. 

Tracer cocked her head, leaning forward experimentally, Amélie watching her warily. She felt her harness bump into the muzzle of the rifle and nuzzled the air shy of her target. Distantly, she heard D.Va's exaggerating sound of disgust. 

"You're not gonna her do that, right? I mean, gross," D.Va continued from very far away, voice muffled by a dream. 

Tracer remembered Amélie from long ago, her and her husband Gérard, and keeping a respectful distance to avoid infringing on their obviously happy marriage. Oh, how she had envied him, wished him gone. Then he was, Gérard's blood sprayed all over the walls of the Lacroix residence, a woman screaming, then cursing her in French and the rolling thunder of pursuing sniper rounds. That's right; she had killed Amélie's husband. 

She hovered over Amélie's lips. Did it matter? She didn't see why it would, though she was positive she had known a moment ago. What difference would one more transgression make? 

Tracer was the public face of Talon's terrorist branch. There was probably no one in the world who didn't recognize the psychotic, cackling monster. She heard someone call her that once. She guessed it was true. There had been some children once, playing pretend and the one playing Tracer was the bad guy and she fell down and pretended to be dead. 

She pressed forward until the harness was flush against her chest again, Amélie's gun unyielding, but she was close enough. 

"Lena," Ameilie asked quietly, "what are you doing? Can you hear me talking to you?" 

"Fuck, I want you," Tracer breathed out, catching Amélie's lips as they were still parted on more empty words 

For the briefest second, she was rewarded with cool, soft flesh, the pull of breath as Amélie gasped, and she grunted against the shove to her chest. Tracer heard someone shout as she tried to pursue the woman in front of her but only drew to a stop from the wrenching pressure on her sternum as the loose harness impacted her anchor. 

"Get your filthy paws off her!" someone roared 

Tracer snarled, whipping her head around to face the old woman, unfazed by the massive rifle barrel pointed at her face. She tried to pull up her pistols and when nothing happened, she blinked, looking at her gauntlets. Where were her pistols? 

Something stabbed her thigh and she looked down in curiosity to find a long feathered dart embedded in the muscle, neatly planted between two armor panels. 

"Hah! That was a really good shot," she complimented, grinning at the old woman. 

"Wow," D.Va said as her twin gun turrets wound up and her M.E.K.A. whined into motion. "It's like her brain vaporized." 

Tracer swayed, abruptly nauseous, seeing double. Holding still, she became increasingly aware of being encircled by people with guns, but she could hear the hum from her fully rebooted accelerator harness. Scanning, she noted that the shimmering blue force field remained in place. Further in the darkness, she could see Zenyatta's single, glowing eye. 

Something pulled at he harness and she flung an arm around it, remember her injured shoulder too late, letting out a sharp cry but refusing to let go. She grabbed Amélie's wrist with the other hand, too desperate to pay any mind to the rustle and clicks of metal all around them. A surge of adrenaline triggered another dose of combat meds into her blood stream and a slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up from her throat. 

"Don't-" but the moment she spoke, the harness let out a warning buzz and she clamped her mouth shut and snapped her gaze vacantly forward. 

It had detected the combination of a stationary position, multiple hostiles in close range and at least one person asking questions. Maybe if her former comrades realized what was happening they would hit her with the EMP again but no, that wouldn't help. Her handlers would be getting mighty suspicious about her absent signal, if they hadn't become so already. It could happen due to interference or obstruction by signal-blocking materials that came between her and the monitor ship, but rarely. 

Amélie shushed her soothingly. "You were tipping over. That is all." 

Tracer closed her eyes as Amélie instead plied her with questions that she was forbidden from answering. She would be shocked. It would hurt. So, every question was met with playful nonsense. 

"Y'know what I don't get?" McCree asked after witnessing several pointless exchanges. "Pacifist snipers. I mean, the both of ya, takin' head-shots one minute an' avoiding expedience the next. An' we're callin' her crazy." 

"A single bullet can prevent an entire battle, thus preserving life, just as one might remove a keystone and topple a building," Amélie's countered. 

"Okay, Socrates," D.Va interrupted, "maybe we might wanna chuck that keystone. I know we all agreed to your plan but after seeing Nutsy McNutter switch on, I'm with the rest of 'em." 

Tracer leaned in as much as Amélie would allow and nuzzled her jaw, trying to lick at the smooth flesh and catch the ridge of bone between her teeth. She was meant to be doing something right now but her vision was swimming and the world felt out of sync. Was she in the Slipstream? When she tried slipping her hands around Amélie's ribs, she felt the resistance of dimensional surface, so it had to be the physical now. 

A rifle muzzle against her check pushed Tracer back and she heard exasperated French curses. 

Tracer chuckled fondly. "Y'always made Gerry blush with those." 

Amélie sucked in her breath harshly. "Lena," she said in warning. "Stop. Pay attention. Are you able to tell us anything that might prove helpful?" 

"Ame," Pharah interrupted, breaking her silence, "she is gone again. We are wasting time and her harness is back online. You are risking all of our lives with this sentimentality." 

Lena opened her mouth but only a croak of protest escaped before the harness shocked her into silence. She wheezed, distantly aware of Amélie cursing again. She remembered catching Gérard on his way home and gunning him down in an alley. She remembered dragging him unconscious and turning him in to her masters. She remembered another time that she caught both him and Amélie in their bedroom, together and beat them both before turning on his wife and...and... 

She twisted away, heaving. "Sorry," Lena whispered, swaying. "I'm so sorry." She couldn't look at Amélie. 

"Zenyatta," Amélie said, briefly scanning the sky above them, not quite as steady as she sounded, "Winston's design, as I understand it, was for an anchor that could be worn in some form of vest or harness. But we are all aware that Talon found unfortunate ways to amplify and capitalize on whatever changes Lena suffered in the Slipstream, yes? Logically, as we have witnessed twice now, she should be eager to be rid of — what they term — a harness. You observed that all the prohibitive functions were linked to the anchor?" 

Zenyatta drifted closer from where he floated cross-legged. "I am uncertain, but I agree that she seems terrified at the prospect of being separated from the harness. There is likely a fail-safe mechanism and further stressing her will likely result in an overdose of whatever cocktail Talon uses on her. It might prove lethal and if that is your intention, a bullet would be kinder." 

Lena jerked reflexively when a thin green lazer walked across her harness. She tracked the green dot as it came to a stop right over a beady indentation. She decided she liked him again, reluctantly looking up to meet Amélie's eyes, then flicking her gaze down again. 

Amélie took hold of Lena's harness again, sliding her hand as if getting a comfortable grip, right overtop the camera. She raised an eyebrow and Lena answered with a weak, grimacing smile. 

The microphone presented a far greater problem. It was extremely sensitive and covering it up would do no good. It would catch everything from speech, subvocalization down to the rythym and pattern of writing. She was staring down at the sand-coated tarmac between her knees, thinking furiously, when her anchor began to beep. 

She went rigid as a shaky gasp escaped her mouth. 

"Why is that beeping?" Amélie asked warily. 

Lena squeezed her eyes shut, doing her best to swallow down the heart lodged in her throat. She couldn't mouth the words without accidentally subvocalizing and the others had fallen inconveniently silent. Meeting Amélie's eyes, she pointed at her, then swept it in twin arcs to include the others and made what she hoped was a fairly universal gesture for people yapping away. 

Amélie cocked her head and began asking common interrogatory questions about Lena's rank, position, authority, capabilities, the location of Talon's bases and so on. When the others failed to interject snide comments as they had earlier, Lena motioned at them irritably, letting them see her disgust before turning her attention downward. 

Reaching out with one finger, she began to draw in the fine coating of sand. First, she made a stick figure with a heart at the center. Then a jagged perimeter around the finger. Then a circle, which she filled with small X's and the label 1KR. Finally, a much larger circle full of arrows pointing inward, labeled #K?? By that point, the beeping had doubled in speed and her hand was shaking badly as she looked back up and nodded at Amélie. 

Amélie looked down, sucked in her breath and yelled, "Abort! Drop the shield and evacuate the area immediately!" as she launched herself upright. "Go! Go!" she added, giving Lena one last glance, a grim understanding smile on her face. 

Lena allowed the panic to flood her completely, felt the drugs wipe out the last of the tranquilizer and was on her feet bolting toward the tracked signal of her monitor ship as the shield fell. The beeping hadn't slowed — wouldn't slow — until she was less than a kilometer from at least one handler but that ship would have kept more than that distance between them. She ran. 

She pushed at the speed barrier and knew she could go faster, but Talon didn't. If it weren't for tonight's encounter, she would sacrifice that minimal tactical advantage in a proverbial heartbeat, but Amélie had listened and understood. So the minuscule possibility of Overwatch finding some way to disable Talon with their new information edged out the survival of a city. The ghost of a high-stakes fighter pilot told her it was more important. 

Desperately, she pulled her goggles back over her face to check the location of her extraction. There, so far, oh God. She wrapped an arm tightly over her dangling harness even though it impaired her gait, but she needed to maintain the lock between anchor and accelerator. Perhaps only for appearances sake, but she didn't dare test her abilities for a long stretch when the GPS tracker was locked on her. 

If it were merely her life at stake, she would step into a barrage of gunfire without hesitation – in relief – because she agreed with Angela. Whatever she became on the combat meds was a monster. She would blink straight into the path of Amélie's next round and let it all end. Talon would lose a deadly weapon and the world would be safer. Except it wouldn't work that way. 

It wouldn't be a single psychopath. Dubai was home to over three million people. Even if only half were in the blast zone, the number of casualties was too surreal to genuinely comprehend. Lena wanted to go back in time and tell a desperate and frightened teenage girl to take that rubbish job in food service and put aside misguided dreams of flying and protecting others from the horrors destroying her own life. She had tried so many times now while in Time Out, punished by periods in the Slipstream. 

She wondered who her final target would be, when Talon would drop her like a missile. No. No, she didn't wonder; she knew. It would be those misguided heroes, too naive to realize that their time had passed. That it had never been their time at all because Overwatch had been the silk glove to Blackwatch's true guiding hand, the pacifying public face of corruption as world superpowers jockeyed for position within an unstable U.N. 

Eventually, but not yet. For now, Talon didn't want Lena dead, just dying to please because they knew she wasn't that sort of person. They knew too well that she wasn't. 

* * *

"What happened there?" Reaper asked, one word at a time, pointing at the communication gap. 

Lena pressed her lips together into a flat line. 

"You will answer the question or-" 

"Amélie showed up," Lena answered with a forced smirk and one sided shrug. 

"And?" he prompted, drawing the word out as he closed the space between them. 

"Tch, what's wrong, Reyes? My jailers pissed there's no vid to watch?" she challenged with a scoff. "Or you just jealous that she never gave you the time o'day?" 

Casually, he picked her up by the throat, not squeezing but merely lifting until she was on her toes. "How did they know to evacuate the area?" he asked, ignoring the goading mockery. 

She didn't care that her insolence would lead to punishment, not this time. "'cause Ame ain't barmy. Weren't my idea to make it beep, now was it?" 

"Crate her," Reaper ordered in tightly reigned fury, letting go. 

The rage over the injustice of being punished for an all around cock-up bubbled past Lena's limited self-control and she launched herself at Reaper. Then she stumbled to a gasping halt, clawing at her harness as it delivered several, timed, electric shocks. Bent over, she sucked in ragged breaths until the pressure in her chest eased. 

"If you are quite done with your tantrum," Reaper began in measured tones, "let me remind you that you only possess your current level of autonomy, and indulgence of certain behaviors, on the assumption that you will exercise intelligent self-direction in accordance with your orders." He hooked clawed gloves under the accelerator's glowing reactor and propelled her backwards until she teetered on her toes. "Did you fail to suspect a trap? Did you take appropriate measures? Am I to believe that a tactically gifted pilot suddenly forgot how to calculate risks?" 

She swallowed mutely. 

"Thirty seconds to respond," he reminded her mildly. 

"I suspected by dismissed the possibility," she admitted wanly, averting her gaze. 

He nodded, the gesture so bird-like with his owl mask that she almost laughed, imagining a great, big, black pigeon in his place. "Not only were you careless and reckless, you permitted a target to survive." 

"It was a little girl," she objected quietly. "I couldn't. You can see I tried, but I couldn't." 

"More work for the publicity team." He waved a clawed gauntlet dismissively. "Typical," he drawled before shoving her toward her handlers with implicit command. 

Vacantly, she began to raise her hands behind her head but her injured shoulder screamed in protest. With a moan, she grabbed the wrist of that arm with her good hand and raised it manually into position before mirroring with the good arm. She fought the urge to hunch over, sweat trickling down her lip, silently pleading with the handlers to work quickly. 

One unhooked her accelerator harness while another confiscated all her weapons, both handing off items to the rest of the team. Lena stared at the scuffed floor, adjusting her position with stilted obedience as they stripped her modular armor until she was down to the underlying bodysuit. When one handler crouched, two others casually trained blasters on her. 

The helmeted man removed the greaves that both protected the slender prosthesis of Lena's lower legs and created the illusion of calves, then the caps over her knees. Except for repairs, there was no need to strip that plating except to emphasize her vulnerability to Talon's whim. It was to remind her that R&D could and would replace whatever part of her body they deemed inefficient, too fragile, or too willful. 

It was a small mercy that her prosthetics were surgically implanted but it was only a matter of time before the last of the sedatives and analgesics wore off. She could feel he ribs shift and grate with every motion and her skin was sticky from the blood that had soaked through. Without the refrigeration units in her armor, her skin grew clammy with sweat during the walk. 

She remained silent in the center of the vigilant phalanx until they reached the fifty by forty by one hundred seventy centimeter cell that Reaper had perversely dubbed her crate. She cradled her punctured hand against her broken ribs and waited as Trevor punched in the current lock combination. 

She stared into the shallow alcove with bile in her throat until Alberda prodded her with an baton. Lena did an about-face and backed up into the cell. When she didn't hear the door slide shut, she opened her eyes to find Trevor studying her. 

He had his visor flipped up and his gaze was...regretful? Sympathetic? He had to know that no one, no matter how strong or noble, could withstand this sort of treatment indefinitely. 

The bile came out of her mouth in snarled words. "Contemplate the meaning of life some other time, mate, and close the bloody door." 

"Yes, ma'am," he acknowledged quietly, as if though she were an actual superior, reaching out to hit the keypad. 

The cell door snapped shut and displaced air burst past her face, tickling her nose. She rubbed the resulting itch against it, then rested her forehead on the metal. Her wounds were throbbing, bruises swelling and her hand was on fire. Between the injuries, dehydration and exhaustion, it wouldn't take long this time. 

She was careful not to obstruct the thin slit along the floor that permitted air exchange, but the rancid odors of blood and sweat soon filled the tiny space. Her heart rate accelerated, like a bird trapped in her chest, beside the anchor embedded beside it. Even so, oxygen starvation was soon triggering the inevitable headache. 

She stood and waited, muscles twitching with the need to move and escape, then trembling. Her rasping breath drowned out the heartbeat in her throat as the dizziness and nausea began and she swallowed convulsively, grateful for her mostly empty stomach. 

When her legs began to shake, one foot sliding into a corner with a scrape of metal on metal, her scattered thoughts went into a frenzy. Muscle cramps twisted her body and her feeble whimpers became groans, then involuntary cries echoed back at her. As futile as it was, she tried to throw her body against the door, struggling against the impossible. 

When the panic subsided into thin wheezes, her mind calmed into a stupor. She set one thought after another with painstaking concentration, using the most important technique she had learned during her training for the R.A.F. Closing her eyes against the blue light, she imagined another place and time. 

She was in a common room at Naples Watchpoint, a cluster of comfortable lounge furniture, meal unit and drink dispenser. A line of broad windows filled the area with hazy morning sunlight and her pals were all there. 

Winston picked her up like a sack of potatoes, tossing her into a sofa chair as she shrieked with laughter. Mercy scolded them both for acting like children instead of combat veterans but Lena tipped her head back, winking at the older woman in a slow, flirtatious gesture. 

"I will pour this coffee on your face if you don't put that away," Angela warned her, swishing the steaming beverage menacingly, but her eyes crinkled in betraying amusement. 

"Put what away?" came a mellow contralto as Amélie came into the room, followed by her husband, Gérard. Eyes going straight to Lena, she put a hand to her chest in feigned horror. "Are you cheating on us, ma chérie?" 

Lena slithered down in the sofa, hands over her burning face as Angela grinned savagely. It had been her bad luck that Amélie's husband had not only caught her ogling his wife on more than one occasion but that the pair had begun double-tagging her in response. She didn't even like men, but she peered between her fingers helplessly and squirmed away when Gérard leaned over the cushions to tap her nose. 

"Do not test her, little one," he scolded, dark eyes dancing. 

Amélie circled in from the other side, making a falsely sympathetic noise with an exaggerated moue. "Tch, I do not believe the coffee could wound her now, Angela. She has already burned." 

When Lena looked to Winston, her buddy, her good mate, he met her gaze peripherally before pushing up his glasses with a single meaty finger and picking up a sandwich. "You're on your own, hotshot." 

Dimly, Lena felt the growing pressure in her chest and back, the arrhythmic stutter of her pulse and increasing muscle convulsions. But back at home, people she loved were teasingly her mercilessly and the ghost of a genuine smile tugged at her lips.


End file.
